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THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 


J-'rom  a  photograph,  copyright  by  Pirie  MacT'onold 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 


THE 
GREAT  ADVENTURE 

PRESENT-DAY  STUDIES  IN 
AMERICAN  NATIONALISM 


BY 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1918 


C*J. 


COPYWCHT,   1918,  BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  November,  1918 


COPYRIGHT,  1817,  1918,  BY  THK  METROPOLITAN  MAGAZINE  CO, 


TO 

ALL  WHO    IN   THIS   WAR   HAVE    PAID   WITH 
THEIR    BODIES   FOR  THEIR  SOULS'   DESIRE 


FOREWORD 

We  should  accept  from  Germany  what  our 
allies  have  wrung  from  Austria  and  Turkey — 
unconditional  surrender.  This  ought  to  be  our 
war  aim;  and  until  this  war  aim  is  achieved  the 
peace  terms  should  be  discussed  only  with  our 
alHes  and  not  with  our  enemies.  In  broad 
outHne,  it  is  possible  now  to  state  what  these 
peace  terms  should  include:  Restitution  by  Ger- 
many of  what  she  has  taken  and  atonement  for 
the  wrong  she  has  done;  her  complete  military 
withdrawal  from  every  foot  of  territory  outside 
her  own  Hmits;  and  the  giving  not  of  *' au- 
tonomy"— a  slippery  word  used  by  slippery 
people  to  mean  anything  or  nothing — but  of 
complete  independence  to  the  races  subject  to 
the  dominion  of  Germany,  Austria,  and  Tur- 
key (which  means  the  creation  of  the  free  com- 
monwealths of  the  Poles,  Czecho-Slovaks,  and 
Armenians,  and  therefore  the  expulsion  of  the 
Turk  from  Europe),  the  absolute  freeing  of  Rus- 
sia from  the  German  stranglehold,  and  aid  gen- 
erously furnished  by  us  to  Russia,  the  retention 


viii  FOREWORD 

by  England  and  Japan  of  the  colonies  they  have 
conquered,  the  restoration  and  indemnification 
of  Belgium,  the  return  of  Alsace-Lorraine  to 
France,  the  creating  of  a  Jugo-Slav  common- 
wealth, the  joining  to  Italy  of  Italian  Austria 
and  to  Roumania  of  Roumanian  Hungary. 

When  the  manuscript  of  this  volume  was 
turned  in,  and  even  up  to  the  time  of  the  revi- 
sion of  the  last  galley-proofs,  it  seemed  that, 
as  regards  the  major  part  of  what  is  above  set 
forth,  I  was  taking  substantially  the  position 
to  which,  after  much  hesitation,  much  indeci- 
sion, and  much  talking  every  which  way,  the 
administration  was  tending  steadily  to  come. 
Apparently  our  government  intended  to  fight 
the  war  through  to  the  peace  of  overwhelming 
victory.  Then,  without  warning,  and  apparently 
without  consultation  with  our  allies,  the  Presi- 
dent entered  into  a  correspondence  or  negotia- 
tion about  peace  terms  with  Germany,  which 
looked  as  if  we  had  gotten  back  to  the  bad  old 
days  when  note-writing  and  conversation  were 
considered  by  Mr.  Wilson  as  adroit  and  suffi- 
cient answers  to  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania 
and  similar  German  crimes.  It  was  the  atti- 
tude of  an  untrustworthy  friend  and  an  irreso- 


FOREWORD  ix 

lute  foe,  and  If  accepted  by  the  nation  would 
have  caused  our  people  to  forfeit  their  own 
self-respect  and  the  respect  of  all  other  nations. 
However,  the  outburst  of  protest  against  the 
President's  action  was  such  that  he  promptly 
reversed  himself  again,  and  after  having  Invited 
Germany's  offer,  repudiated  it  with  indigna- 
tion. We  all  trust  that  he  will  persevere  in 
this  attitude;  but  we  do  not  profess  any  cer- 
tainty of  conviction  in  the  matter. 

The  Germans,  while  they  are  conducting 
their  mihtaiy  retreat  with  formidable  effi- 
ciency, are  carrying  on  an  adroit  peace  offen- 
sive, designed  to  save  Germany  from  wreck 
and  leave  her  an  unpunished  menace  to  the 
future  of  the  world.  They  hope  to  succeed 
by  appealing  to  those  leaders  of  the  Allies 
(especially  in  the  United  States)  who  are  in- 
firm of  purpose  and  wavering  of  will. 

What  Is  needed  at  this  time  is  not  the  com- 
pounding of  felony  by  the  discussion  of  terms 
with  the  felons,  but  the  concentration  and 
speedy  development  of  our  whole  strength  so 
as  to  overwhelm  Germany  in  battle  and  to  dic- 
tate to  her  the  peace  of  unconditional  sur- 
render. 


X  FOREWORD 

Moreover,  our  people  ought  emphatically  to 
repudiate  the  "fourteen  points'*  offered  by 
President  Wilson  as  a  satisfactory  basis  for 
peace.  We  ought  likewise  to  repudiate  all  of 
his  similar  proposals  (some  of  his  utterances 
have  been  satisfactory,  but  all  of  these  have 
been  contradicted  by  his  other  utterances,  and 
no  one  can  be  sure  which  set  of  utterances  will 
receive  his  ultimate  adherence).  Some  of  these 
fourteen  points  are  mischievous  under  any  in- 
terpretation. Most  of  them  are  worded  in  lan- 
guage so  vague  and  so  purely  rhetorical  that 
they  may  be  construed  with  equal  justice  as 
having  diametrically  opposite  meanings.  Ger- 
many and  Austria  have  eagerly  approved  these 
fourteen  points;  our  own  pro-Germans,  paci- 
fists, socialists,  anarchists,  and  professional  in- 
ternationalists also  approve  them;  but  good 
citizens,  who  are  also  sound  American  nation- 
alists, will  insist  upon  all  of  them  being  put 
into  straightforward  and  definite  language — 
and  then  will  reject  most  of  them. 

Under  these  conditions  I  do  not  know  what 
action  our  government  may  now  be  secretly 
planning  or  what  course  it  will  follow  even  in 
the  immediate  future.     But  no  matter  what 


FOREWORD  xi 

this  action  may  be,  the  course' of  conduct  advo- 
cated in  this  volume  is  in  my  judgment  the 
only  course  that  can  with  honor  and  safety  be 
followed  by  the  American  people.  Our  present 
business  is  to  fight,  and  to  continue  fighting 
until  Germany  is  brought  to  her  knees.  Our 
next  business  will  be  to  help  guarantee  the 
peace  of  justice  for  the  world  at  large,  and  to 
set  in  order  the  affairs  of  our  own  household. 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Sagamore  Hill,  November  6,  1918. 


CONTENTS 

CBAFTER  PAGE 

I.    THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  i 

II.    THE    MEN   WHO    PAY   WITH   THEIR 

BODIES  FOR  THEIR  SOULS'  DESIRE      9 

III.  THIS  IS  THE  PEOPLE'S  WAR;  PUT  IT 

THROUGH  31 

IV.  THE   SQUARE   DEAL   IN  AMERICAN- 

ISM 39 

V.    SOUND   NATIONALISM   AND    SOUND 

INTERNATIONALISM  64 

VI.    THE  GERMAN  HORROR  86 

VIL    SERVICE  AND  SELF-RESPECT  93 

VIII.    THE   ROMANOFF   SCYLLA  AND  THE 

BOLSHEVIST  CHARYBDIS  loi 

IX.    PARLOR  BOLSHEVISM  119 

X.    TELL  THE  TRUTH   AND    SPEED   UP 

THE  WAR  129 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACE 

XL    BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS  143 

XII.    THE  GOSPEL  OF  SPILT  MILK  161 


APPENDICES: 

A.    Acknowledgment 

171 

B.    Disposition  of  the  Nobel  Peace 
Prize  Fund 

173 

C,    Put  the  Blame  Where  It  Belongs 

179 

D.    The  Terms  of  Peace;  Speech  on 
Lafayette  Day 

190 

E.    Straight-out  Americanism 

197 

THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

ONLY  those  are  fit  to  live  who  do  not 
fear  to  die;  and  none  are  fit  to  die 
who  have  shrunk  from  the  joy  of  Hfe 
and  the  duty  of  Hfe.  Both  Hfe  and  death  are 
parts  of  the  same  Great  Adventure.  Never 
yet  was  worthy  adventure  worthily  carried 
through  by  the  man  who  put  his  personal 
safety  first.  Never  yet  was  a  country  worth 
Hving  in  unless  its  sons  and  daughters  were 
of  that  stern  stuff  which  bade  them  die  for  it 
at  need;  and  never  yet  was  a  country  worth 
dying  for  unless  its  sons  and  daughters  thought 
of  life  not  as  something  concerned  only  with 
the  selfish  evanescence  of  the  individual,  but 
as  a  Hnk  in  the  great  chain  of  creation  and 
causation,  so  that  each  person  is  seen  in  his 
true  relations  as  an  essential  part  of  the  whole, 
whose  Hfe  must  be  made  to  serve  the  larger 
and  continuing  life  of  the  whole.  Therefore 
it  is  that  the  man  who  is  not  willing  to  die, 
and  the  woman  who  is  not  willing  to  send  her 

I 


2  THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

man  to  die,  in  a  war  for  a  great  cause,  are  not 
worthy  to  live.  Therefore  it  is  that  the  man 
and  woman  who  in  peace-time  fear  or  ignore 
the  primary  and  vital  duties  and  the  high  hap- 
piness of  family  life,  who  dare  not  beget  and 
bear  and  rear  the  life  that  is  to  last  when  they 
are  in  their  graves,  have  broken  the  chain  of 
creation,  and  have  shown  that  they  are  unfit 
for  companionship  with  the  souls  ready  for 
the  Great  Adventure. 

The  wife  of  a  fighting  soldier  at  the  front 
recently  wrote  as  follows  to  the  mother  of  a 
gallant  boy,  who  at  the  front  had  fought  in 
high  air  like  an  eagle,  and,  like  an  eagle,  fight- 
ing had  died: 

I  write  these  few  lines — not  of  condolence  for 
who  would  dare  to  pity  you  ? — but  of  deepest  sym- 
pathy to  you  and  yours  as  you  stand  in  the  shadow 
which  is  the  earthly  side  of  those  clouds  of  glory  in 
which  your  son's  life  has  just  passed.  Many  will 
envy  you  that  when  the  call  to  sacrifice  came  you 
were  not  found  among  the  paupers  to  whom  no 
gift  of  life  worth  offering  had  been  entrusted.  They 
are  the  ones  to  be  pitied,  not  we  whose  dearest  are 
jeoparding  their  lives  unto  the  death  in  the  high 
places  of  the  field.  I  hope  my  two  sons  will  live 
as  worthily  and  die  as  greatly  as  yours. 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  3 

There  spoke  one  dauntless  soul  to  another! 
America  is  safe  while  her  daughters  are  of  this 
kind;  for  their  lovers  and  their  sons  cannot 
fail,  as  long  as  beside  the  hearthstones  stand 
such  wives  and  mothers.  And  we  have  many, 
many  such  women;  and  their  men  are  like 
unto  them. 

With  all  my  heart  I  believe  in  the  joy  of 
living;  but  those  who  achieve  it  do  not  seek 
it  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  as  a  seized  and  prized 
incident  of  hard  work  well  done  and  of  risk 
and  danger  never  wantonly  courted,  but  never 
shirked  when  duty  commands  that  they  be 
faced.  And  those  who  have  earned  joy,  but 
are  rewarded  only  with  sorrow,  must  learn 
the  stern  comfort  dear  to  great  souls,  the  com- 
fort that  springs  from  the  knowledge  taught 
in  times  of  iron  that  the  law  of  worthy  living 
is  not  fulfilled  by  pleasure,  but  by  service, 
and  by  sacrifice  when  only  thereby  can  service 
be  rendered. 

No  nation  can  be  great  unless  its  sons  and 
daughters  have  in  them  the  quahty  to  rise 
level  to  the  needs  of  heroic  days.  Yet  this 
heroic  quality  is  but  the  apex  of  a  pyramid  of 
which  the  broad  foundations  must  solidly  rest 


4  THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

on  the  performance  of  duties  so  ordinary  that 
to  Impatient  minds  they  seem  commonplace. 
No  army  was  ever  great  unless  Its  soldiers  pos- 
sessed the  fighting  edge.  But  the  finest  natural 
fighting  edge  Is  utterly  useless  unless  the  sol- 
diers and  the  junior  officers  have  been  through 
months,  and  the  officers  of  higher  command 
and  the  general  staff  through  years,  of  hard, 
weary.  Intensive  training.  So  likewise  the 
citizenship  of  any  country  Is  worthless  unless 
in  a  crisis  it  shows  the  spirit  of  the  two  million 
Americans  who  In  this  mighty  war  have  eagerly 
come  forward  to  serve  under  the  Banner  of 
the  Stars,  afloat  and  ashore,  and  of  the  other 
mllHons  who  would  now  be  beside  them  over- 
seas If  the  chance  had  been  given  them;  and 
yet  such  spirit  will  In  the  long  run  avail  nothing 
unless  in  the  years  of  peace  the  average  man 
and  average  woman  of  the  duty-performing 
type  realize  that  the  highest  of  all  duties,  the 
one  essential  duty,  is  the  duty  of  perpetuating 
the  family  life,  based  on  the  mutual  love  and 
respect  of  the  one  man  and  the  one  woman, 
and  on  their  purpose  to  rear  the  healthy  and 
fine-souled  children  whose  coming  Into  life 
means  that  the  family  and,  therefore,  the  na- 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  5 

tion  shall  continue  in  life  and  shall  not  end 
in  a  sterile  death. 

Woe  to  those  who  invite  a  sterile  death; 
a  death  not  for  them  only,  but  for  the  race; 
the  death  which  is  insured  by  a  Hfe  of  sterile 
selfishness. 

But  honor,  highest  honor,  to  those  who  fear- 
lessly face  death  for  a  good  cause;  no  Hfe  is 
so  honorable  or  so  fruitful  as  such  a  death. 
Unless  men  are  willing  to  fight  and  die  for 
great  ideals,  including  love  of  country,  ideals 
will  vanish,  and  the  world  will  become  one 
huge  sty  of  materialism.  And  unless  the  women 
of  ideals  bring  forth  the  men  who  are  ready 
thus  to  live  and  die,  the  world  of  the  future 
will  be  filled  by  the  spawn  of  the  unfit.  Alone 
of  human  beings  the  good  and  wise  mother 
stands  on  a  plane  of  equal  honor  with  the 
bravest  soldier;  for  she  has  gladly  gone  down 
to  the  brink  of  the  chasm  of  darkness  to  bring 
back  the  children  in  whose  hands  rests  the 
future  of  the  years.  But  the  mother,  and  far 
more  the  father,  who  flinch  from  the  vital  task 
earn  the  scorn  visited  on  the  soldier  who  flinches 
in  battle.  And  the  nation  should  by  action 
mark  its  attitude  alike  toward  the  fighter  in 


6  THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

war  and  toward  the  child-bearer  in  peace  and 
war.  The  vital  need  of  the  nation  is  that  its 
men  and  women  of  the  future  shall  be  the  sons 
and  daughters  of  the  soldiers  of  the  present. 
Excuse  no  man  from  going  to  war  because  he 
is  married;  but  put  all  unmarried  men  above 
a  fixed  age  at  the  hardest  and  most  dangerous 
tasks;  and  provide  amply  for  the  children 
of  soldiers,  so  as  to  give  their  wives  the  as- 
surance of  material  safety. 

In  such  a  matter  one  can  only  speak  in 
general  terms.  At  this  moment  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  gallant  men  eating  out 
their  hearts  because  the  privilege  of  facing 
death  in  battle  is  denied  them.  So  there  are 
innumerable  women  and  men  whose  unde- 
served misfortune  it  is  that  they  have  no  chil- 
dren or  but  one  child.  These  soldiers  denied 
the  perilous  honor  they  seek,  these  men  and 
women  heart-hungry  for  the  children  of  their 
longing  dreams,  are  as  worthy  of  honor  as  the 
men  who  are  warriors  in  fact,  as  the  women 
whose  children  are  of  flesh  and  blood.  If  the 
only  son  who  is  killed  at  the  front  has  no  brother 
because  his  parents  coldly  dreaded  to  play 
their  part  in  the  Great  Adventure  of  Life,  then 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  7 

our  sorrow  is  not  for  them,  but  solely  for  the 
son  who  himself  dared  the  Great  Adventure 
of  Death.  If,  however,  he  is  the  qnly  son  be- 
cause the  Unseen  Powers  denied  others  to  the 
love  of  his  father  and  mother,  then  we  mourn 
doubly  with  them  because  their  darling  went 
up  to  the  sword  of  Azrael,  because  he  drank 
the  dark  drink  proffered  by  the  Death  Angel. 
In  America  to-day  all  our  people  are  sum- 
moned to  service  and  sacrifice.  Pride  is  the 
portion  only  of  those  who  know  bitter  sorrow 
or  the  foreboding  of  bitter  sorrow.  But  all 
of  us  who  give  service,  and  stand  ready  for 
sacrifice,  are  the  torch-bearers.  We  run  with 
the  torches  until  we  fall,  content  if  we  can 
then  pass  them  to  the  hands  of  other  runners. 
The  torches  whose  flame  is  brightest  are  borne 
by  the  gallant  men  at  the  front,  and  by  the 
gallant  women  whose  husbands  and  lovers, 
whose  sons  and  brothers  are  at  the  front.  These 
men  are  high  of  soul,  as  they  face  their  fate 
on  the  shell-shattered  earth,  or  in  the  skies 
above  or  in  the  waters  beneath;  and  no  less 
high  of  soul  are  the  women  with  torn  hearts 
and  shining  eyes;  the  girls  whose  boy  lovers 
have  been  struck  down  in  their  golden  morning. 


8  THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

and  the  mothers  and  wives  to  whom  word  has 
been  brought  that  henceforth  they  must  walk 
in  the  shadow. 

These  are  the  torch-bearers;   these  are  they 
who  have  dared  the  Great  Adventure. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  WITH  THEIR 

BODIES  FOR  THEIR  SOULS' 

DESIRE 

IN  a  great  war  for  the  right  the  one  great 
debt  owed  by  the  nation  is  that  to  the 
men  who  go  to  the  front  and  pay  with 
their  bodies  for  the  faith  that  is  in  them.  At 
the  front  there  are  of  course  of  necessity  a  few 
men  who,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  are  not 
in  positions  of  great  danger — as  regards  the 
staff  and  the  high  command,  the  burden  of 
crushing  responsibiHty  borne  by  such  men 
outweighs  danger.  But  as  a  rule  the  men  who 
do  the  great  work  for  the  nation  are  the  men 
who,  for  a  money  payment  infinitely  less  than 
what  they  would  earn  in  civil  life,  face  terrible 
risk  and  endure  indescribable  hardship  and 
fatigue  and  misery  at  the  front.  These  men 
include  the  air  fighters,  who  run  the  greatest 
risk  of  all;  and  the  fighting  foot-sluggers,  the  in- 
fantry,— the  "doughboys, — "  and  the  marines, 

9 


10         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

and  the  machine-gun  men,  who  take  the  ter- 
rible punishment  when  the  tremendous  thrusts 
are  made;  and  the  engineers  and  the  men  in 
the  tanks  and  the  men  with  the  field-guns  and 
the  heavier  guns,  and  the  men  who  manage 
the  gas — the  work  of  all  of  whom  is  absolutely- 
indispensable  and  who  do  it  in  hourly  peril 
of  their  lives;  and  the  doctors  and  stretcher- 
bearers  who  suffer  the  same  dangers  as  the 
men  to  whom  they  bring  succor;  and  the 
men  who  bring  up  the  munition-trains — in 
short,  all  who  under  fire  join  in  the  exhausting 
and  perilous  labor  which  brings  victory.  These 
are  the  real  heroes.  These  are  the  men  who 
do  the  one  great  and  indispensable  task  which 
entitles  them  forever  to  be  honored  by  all  true 
Americans. 

The  rest  of  us  behind  the  lines  are  merely 
supplementing  their  work.  I  have  no  patience 
with  the  well-meaning,  silly  persons  who  now 
and  then  announce  that  "saving  will  win  the 
war"  or  that  "money  will  win  the  war"  or 
that  "food  will  win  the  war."  Let  these  good 
persons  speak  the  truth  and  say  that  Liberty 
Bonds  and  Thrift  Savings  Stamps  and  the 
production   of   food    and    munitions    and    the 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  ii 

practice  of  economy  and  the  work  done  through 
organizations  like  the  Red  Cross  will  all  help 
to  win  the  war  and  are  indispensable.  But  the 
war  will  be  won  by  the  fighting  men  at  the 
front !  Every  other  activity  in  this  nation  is 
merely  auxiliary  to  theirs. 

From  General  Pershing  down  the  men  of 
our  army  overseas  have  won  for  themselves 
deathless  fame  and  have  reflected  the  highest 
honor  upon  this  nation.  I  know  personally 
of  division,  brigade,  and  regimental  commanders 
who,  in  addition  to  high  valor,  have  shown  an 
efficiency  which  puts  them  on  a  level  with  the 
very  best  men  of  their  rank  in  any  service  in 
the  world — I  do  not  mention  their  names,  merely 
because  to  do  so  would  probably  do  an  injustice 
to  others  equally  good  about  whom  I  do  not 
know.  As  for  the  battalion  and  company  and 
platoon  officers  and  non-commissioned  officers 
and  rank  and  file,  I  do  not  think  it  is  untruthful 
or  exaggerated  to  say  that  on  the  whole  when 
our  troops  have  finished  their  training  they 
stand  a  little  above  the  average  of  any  other 
army  in  the  world  to-day.  The  seven  or  eight 
American  divisions  who  did  the  murderous 
fighting    in   July    and   August    during   Foch's 


12        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

great  counter-offensive  established  a  record 
such  as  only  the  few  very  finest  troops  of  any 
other  army  could  equal,  and  which  could  not 
be  surpassed.  Probably  in  our  own  history 
nothing  has  ever  quite  come  up  to  it,  save  in 
certain  actions  during  the  Civil  War.  The 
endurance,  the  valor,  the  efficiency,  the  fight- 
ing edge  of  these  men  could  not  be  surpassed. 
Their  losses  correspond  to  their  achievements. 
(In  the  infantry  regiment  in  which  two  of  my 
sons  served,  the  colonel,  the  lieutenant-colonel, 
the  three  majors,  and  almost  all  the  captains 
and  lieutenants  were  killed  or  wounded;  and 
the  loss  was  proportionally  almost  as  great 
among  the  enlisted  men.)  In  addition  to  these 
divisions  there  were  two  or  three  times  as  many 
other  divisions,  across  the  seas  or  about  to 
cross  the  seas,  who  were  composed  of  as  fine 
fighting  material,  and  who  by  this  time  are 
probably  as  efficient,  but  who  had  not  at  that 
period  been  sufficiently  trained  to  do  the 
heaviest  assault  work.  But  they  have  been 
trained  now;  Pershing's  army  began  its  great 
thrust,  as  a  separate  army,  about  a  year  and 
a  half  after  we  entered  the  war.  The  actual 
management  of  our  oversea  army  work  is  now 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  13 

excellent;    and   the  quality   of  our  troops   is 
really  extraordinary. 

The  noted  French  sociologist  Gustave  Le 
Bon  writes  me: 

My  compatriots  have  discovered  an  America  of 
which  they  had  no  idea.  In  addition  to  the  hero- 
ism of  her  soldiers  she  has  revealed  aptitudes  for 
scientific  method  and  organization,  the  fruits  of 
her  education,  which  have  awakened  our  admira- 
tion. Harbors,  railroads,  factories  rise  as  if  by 
magic.  Every  one  asks  how  such  men  were  trained 
and  instructed. 

Our  men  include  Americans  from  every 
section  of  the  country  and  from  every  walk 
of  life.  The  son  of  the  railroad  president  and 
the  son  of  the  brakeman,  the  college  graduate 
and  the  man  who  left  a  plough-tail  at  the  end 
of  the  furrow,  or  threw  down  his  pick  and  shovel 
or  his  ax  and  saw,  all  stand  on  the  same  plane, 
and  do  the  same  work  and  face  and  meet  the 
same  dangers.  The  son  of  the  wealthy  man 
who  has  been  reared  softly,  and  the  son  of  the 
man  who  has  every  day  eaten  his  bread  in  the 
sweat  of  his  brow,  look  death  in  the  eyes  with 
the  same  stern  courage  and  do  their  hard  grind- 


14        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

ing  work  with  the  same  grim  efficiency.  In 
the  intervals  of  work  they  are  light-hearted 
and  they  enjoy  themselves  greatly,  snatching 
the  pleasures  with  an  added  zest,  because  peril 
is  so  very  near.  Protestant  and  Catholic,  Jew 
and  Gentile,  men  of  old  native  American  stock, 
and  men  whose  parents  were  born  abroad  or 
who  themselves  were  born  abroad — no  dis- 
tinction whatever  can  be  made  among  them 
as  they  do  their  allotted  tasks. 

The  moods  in  which  they  have  accomplished 
these  tasks  vary  as  widely  as  the  tasks  them- 
selves. But  the  work  is  well  done,  whether 
inspired  by  matter-of-fact  acceptance  of  the 
fact  that  the  United  States  is  at  war  and  that 
therefore  it  is  up  to  the  men  of  fighting  age 
to  do  the  fighting  men's  job;  or  by  the  exalted 
idealism  of  the  young  Galahad  whose  eyes  are 
open  to  the  shining  visions  shrouded  from  duller 
sight — and  the  young  Galahads  of  this  great 
war  when  they  have  found  the  grail  have  too 
often  filled  it  with  their  own  hearts'  blood. 

Some  have  been  driven  by  a  sense  of  duty 
to  do  the  best  there  was  in  them  in  a  task  for 
which  they  have  no  natural  desire.  Others 
eagerly  welcome  the  chance  to  sweep  straight 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  15 

as  a  falcon  at  the  quarry  which  may  be  death; 
and  these  may  come  back  with  broken  wings; 
or  they  may  never  come  back,  and  word  may 
be  brought  to  the  women  who  weep  that  they 
must  walk  henceforth  in  the  shadow.  But 
all  alike  have  done  their  duty  and  more  than 
their  duty;  and  their  souls  shall  stand  forever 
in  the  glory  of  the  morning;  and  all  who  dwell 
in  this  land  now,  or  who  shall  dwell  in  it  in 
the  future,  owe  to  them  a  debt  that  can  never 
be  cancelled. 

And  the  first  instalment  of  payment  on  this 
debt  should  be  paid  by  the  government  to  the 
wives  and  children  and  dependent  mothers  left 
by  the  man  who  goes  to  the  front.  The  wife 
who  cheers  him  when  he  goes,  and  the  children 
whom  he  leaves  behind  when  he  goes,  should  be 
amply  provided  for  as  a  matter  of  mere  justice. 
I  beheve  that  the  state  should  in  some  way 
endow  motherhood  anyhow;  but  there  can  be 
no  question  of  our  duty  toward  the  mother  of 
the  children  whose  father  has  left  her  and  them 
to  go  to  war. 

We  are  fighting  for  our  dearest  rights.  We 
arc  also  fighting  for  the  rights  of  all  peoples, 


i6        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

small  or  great,  so  long  as  they  are  well-behaved 
and  do  not  wrong  others,  to  enjoy  their  liberty 
and  govern  themselves  in  the  forms  they  see 
fit  to  adopt.  We  intend  to  try  to  help  others, 
but  we  know  well  that  we  cannot  do  so  unless 
we  are  able  to  do  justice  within  our  own  bor- 
ders, and  to  manage  well  the  affairs  of  our 
own  household.  Therefore  it  behooves  us, 
even  now  while  we  are  bending  all  our  energies 
to  winning  the  great  war,  also  to  look  to  the 
future,  and  to  begin  to  ponder  the  things  that 
we  must  do  to  bring  greater  happiness  and 
well-being  and  a  higher  standard  of  conduct 
and  character  within  our  own  borders  when 
once  the  war  is  through. 

Surely  all  of  us — ^and  especially  those  of  us 
who  stay  at  home  and  who  are  denied  the  op- 
portunity to  go  to  the  front — ought  to  realize 
the  need  in  this  country  of  a  loftier  idealism 
than  we  have  had  in  the  past;  and  the  further 
and  even  greater  need  that  we  should  in  actual 
practice  live  up  to  the  ideals  we  profess.  The 
things  of  the  body  have  a  rightful  place  and  a 
great  place.  But  the  things  of  the  soul  should 
have  an  even  greater  place.  There  has  been 
in  the  past  in  this  country  far  too  much  of 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  17 

that  gross  materialism  which,  in  the  end,  eats 
Hke  an  acid  into  all  the  finer  qualities  of  our 
souls. 

The  war  came — our  gross  ideals  were  shat- 
tered and  the  scales  fell  from  our  eyes,  and  we 
saw  things  as  they  really  were.  Suddenly  in 
the  awful  presence  of  death  we  grew  to  under- 
stand the  true  values  of  life.  We  realized 
that  only  those  men  were  fit  to  live  who  were 
not  afraid  to  die;  that  although  death  was  a 
terrible  thing,  yet  that  there  were  other  things 
that  were  more  terrible,  other  things  that  made 
life  not  worth  living.  All  the  finest  of  our 
young  men,  all  those  high  of  soul,  responded 
eagerly  to  the  call  to  arms;  the  son  of  the  rich 
man  and  the  son  of  the  poor  man,  side  by  side, 
neither  claiming  any  favor  except  the  chance 
to  win  honor  and  perform  duty  in  the  face  of 
deadly  peril.  These  men  who  have  been  going, 
and  are  going  abroad  by  the  million,  are  sacri- 
ficing everything  for  the  sake  of  a  great  ideal. 
They  have  shown  their  wiUingness  to  sacrifice 
money  and  ease  and  pleasure,  and  life  itself 
when  duty  calls,  and  the  nation  bids  them  go. 
Let  us  who  are  left  behind  in  our  turn  strive  to 
make  our  fives  a  little  nearer  the  right  ideal. 


i8        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

Let  us  introduce  into  the  work  of  peace  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  that  they  have  introduced 
into  the  work  of  war.  When  these  men  come 
home,  or  at  least  when  those  of  them  who 
escape  death  come  home,  I  beheve  that  they 
will  demand,  and  I  know  that  they  ought  to 
demand,  a  juster  type  of  life,  socially  and  in- 
dustrially, in  this  country.  I  believe,  and  I 
hope,  that  they  will  demand  a  loftier  ideahsm 
in  both  our  public  and  private  affairs,  and  bet- 
ter and  more  common-sense  methods  of  reduc- 
ing our  ideals  to  practice  and  making  them  re- 
alizable. I  believe  that  they  will  themselves 
show  both  idealism  and  also  that  common 
sense  the  lack  of  which  insures  disaster  in 
peace  as  in  war.  I  think  they  will  insist  upon 
a  livelier  sense  of  brotherhood  and  yet  will  no 
less  insist  upon  the  duty  of  recognizing  lead- 
ership. Our  aim  must  be  to  raise  the  level 
of  the  table-land  of  general  opportunity  and 
welfare  without  lowering  the  peaks  of  high 
achievement.  Let  the  difference  of  reward  be 
as  great  as  that  between  our  generals  and 
admirals,  such  as  Pershing  and  Sims,  and  the 
warrant  officers  or  senior  non-commissioned 
officers  under  them.     But  let  there  be  a  bet- 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  19 

ter  proportion  than  is  now  the  case  in  indus- 
trial life,  between  the  service  rendered  and  the 
reward  given.  Gradually  I  hope  to  see  the 
wage-worker  become  in  a  real  sense  a  partner 
in  the  enterprise  in  which  he  works;  and  to 
achieve  this  end  he  must  develop  the  power 
of  self-control,  the  power  of  recognizing  the 
rights  of  others  no  less  than  insisting  upon 
his  own;  he  must  develop  common  sense;  and 
that  strength  of  character  which  cannot  be 
conferred  from  without,  and  the  lack  of  which 
renders  everything  else  of  no  avail.  Above 
all,  I  wish  to  see  the  farmers  develop  their 
strength  by  co-operation  and  in  other  ways, 
so  that  the  elemental  work  of  the  soil  will  re- 
sume its  ancient  importance  among  us. 

At  this  moment  we  can  only  lay  the  founda- 
tion in  outline;  but  there  are  certain  things 
that  we  should  do  at  once  in  connection  with 
the  war.  One  of  them  is  to  stop  all  profiteer- 
ing by  capitalists;  and  another  is  to  stop  all 
slacking  and  loafing,  whether  by  undividual 
workmen  or  as  a  result  of  union  action.  Of 
these  two  perhaps  the  profiteer  is  worse;  but 
the  slacker  is  almost  as  bad.  As  for  the  prof- 
iteer, any  man  who  makes   a  fortune  out  of 


20        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

this  war  ought  to  be  held  up  to  derision  and 
scorn.  No  man  should  come  out  of  this  war 
materially  ahead  of  what  he  was  when  we  went 
into  it.  There  must  be  the  reward  for  capital 
necessary  in  order  to  make  it  profitable  to  do 
the  necessary  work,  and  to  cover  the  necessary 
risks;  this  is  indispensable,  and  the  government 
should  see  that  neither  demagogy  nor  igno- 
rance interferes  with  this  necessary  reward. 
But  we  heartily  approve,  as  a  war  measure, 
of  heavy  progressive  taxation  of  all  profits,  be- 
yond the  reasonable  profits  necessary  for  the 
continuance  of  industry,  and  our  governmental 
authorities  would  do  well  to  see  whether  it  is 
not  possible  tc  put  a  tax  on  unused  land. 
Most  of  our  captains  of  finance  are  doing  with 
all  their  energy  necessary  governmental  work 
without  any  financial  reward  for  themselves. 
I  honor  these  men,  I  honor  their  sons  who  have 
gone  to  the  war.  But  I  have  scant  patience 
with  the  other  men  who  treat  the  war  merely 
as  a  chance  for  profit;  and  I  have  least  patience 
with  the  rich  men  who  keep  their  sons  at 
home.  I  will  not  excuse  the  poor  man  from 
going  to  war;  but  I  would  ma^e  it  obligatory 
on  the  man  who  has  much.     As  for  the  prof- 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  21 

iteer,  if  I  could  get  at  him  I  would  like  to  put 
him  to  digging  the  front  trenches.  And  I 
would  put  beside  him  his  brother  in  wrong- 
doing, the  slacker  or  loafer,  the  man  who 
Hmits  the  output,  when  it  is  necessary  at  this 
time  that  we  should  have  the  greatest  possible 
production;  and  I  would  do  this  whether  he 
was  acting  as  an  individual,  or  as  an  official 
or  member  of  a  labor  union.  Pershing's  men 
are  not  limiting  their  output,  and  shame  and 
disgrace  should  be  the  portion  of  any  man  who 
limits  his  output  here  at  home. 

I  believe  that  when  this  war  is  over  we 
should  prepare  for  our  self-defense  against 
other  nations,  and  I  believe  that  we  should 
prepare  for  our  own  inner  development.  And 
in  order  to  meet  both  needs,  I  believe  in  the 
principle  of  universal  service.  Of  this  military 
service  is  but  a  part.  It  is  a  vital  part,  and 
under  no  circumstances  can  we  neglect  it.  But 
it  is  only  a  part.  Universal  suffrage  can  be 
justified  only  by  universal  service,  service  in 
peace  and  service  in  war.  The  man  who  will 
not  render  this  service  has  no  right  to  the  vote. 
If  he  won't  fight  for  the  country  in  war  and 
do  his  duty  by  the  country  in  peace,  we  ought 


22         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

not  to  permit  him  to  vote  In  the  country. 
The  conscientious  objector  who  won't  serve  as 
a  soldier  or  won't  pay  his  taxes  has  no  place 
in  a  republic  like  ours,  and  should  be  expelled 
from  it,  for  no  man  who  won't  pull  his  weight 
in  the  boat  has  a  right  in  the  boat.  The  So- 
ciety of  Friends  have  come  forward  in  this 
war  just  as  gallantly  as  they  came  forward 
in  the  Civil  War,  and  all  true  believers  in  peace 
will  do  well  to  follow  their  example. 

We  now  have  an  approach  to  the  universal 
service  which  some  of  us  have  for  many  years 
been  demanding.  We  now  have  all  men  from 
eighteen  to  forty-five  required  to  serve  their 
country,  and  required  to  register.  Let  us 
make  this  system  permanent,  and  let  us  use 
it  for  the  purposes  of  peace  no  less  than  for 
the  purposes  of  war.  Let  us  extend  the  prin- 
ciple to  women  no  less  than  to  men.  Let  us 
base  suffrage  on  service.  Let  us  demand  the 
service  from  women  as  we  do  from  men,  and 
in  return  give  the  suffrage  to  all  men  and 
women  who,  in  peace  and  war  perform  the  ser- 
vice, and  to  no  others.  Base  suffrage  on  ser- 
vice and  not  on  sex.  Treat  it  not  as  an  un- 
earned privilege  but  as  a  duty  which  each  of  us 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  23 

is  to  perform  in  a  spirit  of  service  to  all  of  us 
and  as  a  right  which  is  not  to  be  enjoyed  un- 
less the  person  enjoying  it  does  his  or  her  full 
duty  in  peace  and  war. 

Universal  training  is  a  prerequisite  for  effi- 
cient universal  service.  It  is  just  as  much  a 
prerequisite  for  efficient  service  in  war  as  for 
efficient  service  in  peace.  It  is  just  as  much  a 
prerequisite  for  women  as  for  men.  At  this 
moment  we  have  embodied  in  law  the  principle 
of  universal  military  service  for  men,  but  inas- 
much as  there  has  never  been  universal  obliga- 
tory military  training  for  the  service,  we  now 
have  to  do  all  this  training  during  the  war  it- 
self. In  consequence  we  were  not  able  to  exert 
any  considerable  fraction  of  our  man-power 
until  over  a  year  after  we  went  to  war;  and 
over  two  years  will  have  elapsed  before  the 
proportion  of  our  strength  thus  actually  usable 
and  used  will  be  anywhere  near  as  great  as  the 
proportion  of  the  French,  English,  or  Italian 
strength  thus  used.  This  means  that  during 
the  first  year  of  the  war  we  would  have  been 
absolutely  helpless,  and  during  the  first  year 
and  a  half  almost  helpless,  against  our  antago- 
nists  if  we  had   not   been   protected   by   the 


24        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

armies  and  navies  of  our  allies.  In  other 
words,  while  we  were  hardening  our  unpre- 
pared and  helpless  strength,  and  making  it 
ready,  we  were  saved  from  the  strength  and 
fury  of  our  enemy  only  by  the  strength  and 
valor  of  our  allies.  We  now  have  universal 
military  service.  If  four  years  ago  we  had  had 
universal  mihtary  training,  so  that  the  service 
would  have  been  immediately  efficient  when 
called  for,  the  war  would  have  been  over  within 
ninety  days  from  the  time  we  entered  it,  and 
infinite  bloodshed  and  treasure  would  have 
been  spared.  Next  time  we  may  not  have 
allies  to  protect  us !  And  even  if  we  do  have 
alhes,  let  us  remember  that  our  latent  strength 
is  such  that  if  we  prepare  it  in  advance  the 
chances  are  strong  for  our  imposing  an  almost 
immediate  peace  in  any  conflict  into  which  we 
are  obliged  to  enter;  whereas  if  we  do  not  pre- 
pare it  in  advance  we  are  doomed  to  impotence 
in  any  war  unless  we  have  allies  who  protect 
us  during  the  year  or  two  we  spend  in  hurried 
and  extravagant  eff'ort  to  do  what  we  ought  to 
have  already  done. 

I  am  not  advocating  Prussian  militarism.     I 
am  advocating  the  kind  of  democratic  prepared- 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  25 

ness  which  Switzerland  has  developed  to  her 
own  great  advantage  socially  and  economically, 
and  with  the  result  of  keeping  war  out  of  her 
borders.  Let  us  profit  by  our  own  experience 
of  the  last  year.  Our  training-camps  have  been 
universities  of  applied  Americanism.  For  every 
young  man  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and 
twenty  to  have  six  months  in  such  a  camp, 
which  would  include,  of  course,  some  field  ser- 
vice, would  be  of  incalculable  benefit  to  him, 
and  of  like  benefit  to  the  nation.  It  would 
teach  him  self-reliance,  self-respect,  mutuality 
of  respect  between  himself  and  others,  the 
power  to  command  and  the  power  to  obey;  it 
would  teach  him  habits  of  cleanHness  and 
order  and  the  power  of  co-operation,  and 
above  all,  devotion  to  the  flag,  the  ideal  of 
country.  It  would  make  him  a  soldier  imme- 
diately fit  for  defensive  work,  and  readily  to 
be  turned  into  a  soldier  fit  for  off'ensive  work 
if,  as  in  the  present  war,  offense  prove  the  only 
method  of  real  defense.  Every  such  man, 
after  his  experience  in  the  camp,  would  tend 
to  be  a  better  citizen  and  would  tend  to  do  his 
own  work  for  himself  and  his  family  better 
and  with  more  efficient  result.    His  experience 


26        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

would  help  him  in  material  matters  and  at 
the  same  time  would  teach  him  to  put  certain 
great  spiritual  ideals  in  the  foremost  place. 

Incidentally,  we  ought  to  change  the  draft 
rules,  so  far  as  giving  any  special  privileges  to 
the  young  fellows  between  eighteen  and  twenty 
in  the  matter  of  college  training,  to  fit  them  to 
be  officers.  To  say  that  the  nation  will  pay 
for  all  of  them  to  go  to  college  is  a  deception, 
and  to  believe  it  is  a  delusion.  I  do  not  believe 
in  a  selective  draft  for  a  favored  class.  I  wish 
to  see  fair  play  for  the  workman's  son  who  has 
not  had  the  chance  to  learn  so  that  he  can  go 
to  college,  but  who  has  the  natural  ability  to 
command  and  lead  men.  Only  boys  whose 
parents  in  the  past  have  had  the  money  to  give 
them  a  special  education  can  enter  college  at 
the  present  time,  and  it  is  unfair  to  the  other 
boys  to  give  these  a  special  advantage.  Let 
all  go  into  the  ranks  together  and  after  six 
months  or  a  year  of  service  let  the  best  men  be 
chosen  out  to  enter  the  schools  which  will  fit 
them  to  be  officers.  Of  course,  with  the  older 
men  and  at  the  beginning,  we  had  to  take  those 
already  available.  But  when  we  come  to  need 
the  young  fellows  under  twenty-one,  let  every 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  27 

man  enter  the  ranks  and  stand  on  a  fair  footing 
with  every  one  else,  and  be  given  promotion 
on  his  merits.  Hitherto  the  men  who  came  in 
under  twenty-one,  came  in  as  volunteers,  and 
they  were  entitled  to  try  for  any  position  they 
could  get;  but  now  we  have  at  last  done  what 
we  ought  to  have  done  in  the  beginning.  Now 
let  them  all  stand  ahke. 

Therefore,  I  hope  that  now  we  shall  make  the 
system  of  universal  military  service  and  mili- 
tary training  which  we  have  introduced  per- 
manent, although,  of  course,  in  modified  form. 
But  I  would  not  stop  here.  I  would  use  the 
registration  of  all  our  men  as  a  basis  for  further 
development  for  training  and  service  in  the 
duties  of  peace.  I  would  register  the  young 
women  just  as  much  as  the  young  men.  I 
would  give  them  both  certain  fundamental 
forms  of  industrial  training — training  in  the 
things  that  are  fundamental  in  the  ordinary 
work  of  the  ordinary  man  and  woman  in  their 
business  occupations  and  in  and  around  their 
home;  in  the  things  which  it  is  good  for  every 
man  and  every  woman  to  know.  I  mean  cer- 
tain forms  of  manual  labor  and  mechanical 
labor  for  men,  and  certain  forms  of  household 


28        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

work  and  work  outside  of  the  house  for  women. 
The  teaching  in  the  schools  should  be  only  in 
English;  in  this  country  there  is  room  for  but 
one  flag  and  for  but  one  language.  I  believe  in 
education.  I  believe  in  giving  it  free  to  every 
man  and  every  woman,  because  I  don't  think 
we  can  have  a  successful  democracy  unless  it  is 
an  educated  one.  I  believe  in  making  it  obli- 
gatory so  far  as  primary  education  is  concerned, 
and  I  believe  in  making  it  possible  for  every 
man  or  woman  who  really  desires  it  to  have  a 
higher  education,  but  that  this  shall  be  per- 
missive and  not  obligatory.  Moreover,  I  be- 
lieve that  the  education  shall  be  an  education 
not  only  of  the  mind  but  also  of  the  soul  and 
the  body.  I  think  we  should  educate  men 
and  women  toward  and  not  away  from  what 
is  to  be  their  life-work — toward  the  home, 
toward  the  farm,  toward  the  shop,  and  not 
away  from  them.  I  would  use  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  system  of  universal  training  and  ser- 
vice as  a  means  for  securing  this  education. 

I  mention  education  only  as  one  of  the 
aims  we  ought  to  have  in  view  in  connection 
with  universal  training  of  our  citizenship  for 
service.     There   are   very   many   lines   of  en- 


THE  MEN  WHO  PAY  29 

deavor  in  such  an  effort  of  constructive  states- 
manship; for  construction  and  not  destruction 
should  be  the  key-note  of  our  policy  at  this 
time.  Our  educational  system  should  deal 
especially  with  all  immigrants;  and  a  pecuHarly 
important  branch  of  it  at  the  present  time 
ought  to  be  the  training  of  the  disabled  and 
the  crippled  returning  soldiers,  so  that  they 
may  become,  not  objects  of  charity,  but  self- 
supporting  citizens.  We  should  develop  the 
water-powers  under  the  government,  keeping 
ownership  in  the  public,  and  preventing  the 
pollution  of  interstate  streams.  We  should 
begin  at  once  to  take  thought  for  the  soldiers 
when  they  return;  to  develop  national  employ- 
ment agencies  for  the  redistribution  of  men 
after  the  war.  We  should  enter  on  a  course 
of  taxation,  purchase,  and  development  of 
land  so  as  to  give  to  the  returned  soldier  who 
is  fit  for  it  the  chance  to  do  the  most  vital  of 
all  works,  to  till  the  soil  on  the  farm  which 
he  himself  owns;  and  we  can  treat  this  as  a 
stepping-stone  to  further  study  of  and  action 
concerning  country  life  and  farm  production, 
so  as  to  promote  the  growth  and  prosperity  of 
the  farmers  who  work  hard  on  their  own  land. 


30         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

We  must  prepare  our  shipping  for  times  of 
peace,  and  prepare  to  deal  with  the  foreign- 
markets  situation,  as  part  of  our  programme 
of  wise  universal  service;  and,  what  is  even 
more  important,  we  must  deal  on  a  national 
scale  with  factory  and  industrial  conditions; 
with  city  and  country  housing  conditions; 
with  child  labor;  and  with  old  age,  health 
and  unemployment  insurance  for  workers. 


CHAPTER  III 

THIS  IS  THE  PEOPLE'S  WAR; 
PUT  IT  THROUGH 

THIS  is  the  people's  war.  It  is  not  the 
President's  war.  It  is  not  Congress's 
war.  It  is  America's  war.  We  are  in 
honor  bound  in  conducting  it  to  stand  by 
every  official  who  does  well,  and  against  every 
official  who  fails  to  do  well.  Any  other  atti- 
tude is  servile  and  unworthy  of  an  American 
freeman. 

In  the  papers  ten  months  ago  there  ap- 
peared a  brief  statement  made  by  an  un- 
named young  American  major  to  his  troops 
in  the  trenches  in  France.     He  said: 

We  have  reached  the  top  in  training.  If  you 
need  anything  come  and  tell  me  and  I  will  get  it 
for  you  if  I  can.  If  I  do  not  get  it  I  do  not  want 
to  hear  about  it  again,  for  it  means  that  I  cannot 
get  it.  We  will  have  three  meals  a  day  if  we  can 
get  them.  If  we  have  to  miss  one  meal  we  will 
not  be  badly  off,  and  if  we  miss  two  or  three  it  will 
not  be  much  worse.     We  are  expected  to  work  from 

31 


32        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

midnight  of  one  day  to  midnight  of  the  next  day. 
If  there  is  any  chance  to  sleep  between,  all  right. 
It  will  also  be  all  right  if  there  is  no  chance.  Let 
everybody  pitch  in.  While  mud  and  water  must 
be  fought  it  may  be  much  worse.  The  hopes  of 
the  Nation  are  fixed  on  each  man. 

The  ideal  of  duty  thus  set  before  our  sol- 
diers, before  the  Americans  who  at  this  time 
risk  most  and  suffer  most,  is  substantially  the 
ideal  of  duty  toward  which  all  of  the  rest  of 
us  here  in  America  should,  in  our  turn,  like- 
wise strive.  We  must  brace  ourselves  for  effort 
and  for  endurance  through  a  hard  and  danger- 
ous year.  High  of  heart  and  with  unfaltering 
soul,  we  must  do  our  part  in  the  grim  work  of 
toiling  and  fighting  to  bring  a  little  nearer  the 
day  when  there  shall  be  orderly  liberty  through- 
out the  world,  and  when  justice  and  mercy  and 
brotherly  love  shall  obtain  between  man  and 
man  and  among  all  the  nations  of  mankind. 
We  must  show  our  faith  by  our  works.  We 
must  prove  our  truth  by  our  endeavor.  We 
must  scorn  the  baseness  which  uses  high- 
sounding  speech  to  cloak  ignoble  action,  and 
which  seeks  to  betray  suffering  right  with  the 
Judas  kiss  of  a  treacherous  peace. 


THIS  IS  THE  PEOPLE'S  WAR      33 

Henceforth  we  at  home  will  suffer  some  dis- 
comfort, a  little  unimportant  privation  and 
much  wearing  anxiety.  What  of  it  ?  What 
we  at  home  endure  will  be  as  nothing  com- 
pared to  that  which  is  faced  by  the  sons  and 
brothers,  by  the  husbands  and  fathers  at  the 
front;  and  what  the  fighting  men  of  to-day 
face  and  bear  will  be  no  harder  than  what  was 
faced  and  borne  by  Washington's  troops  at 
Valley  Forge  and  Trenton,  and  by  the  sol- 
diers of  Grant  and  Lee  when  they  wrestled  in 
the  Wilderness.  We  inherit  as  free  men  this 
fair  and  mighty  land  only  because  our  fathers 
and  forefathers  had  iron  in  their  blood.  We 
can  leave  our  heritage  undiminished  to  those 
who  come  after  us  only  if  we  in  our  turn  show 
a  resolute  and  rugged  manliness  in  the  dark 
days  of  trial  that  have  come  upon  us. 

Let  us  all,  individually  and  collectively,  do 
our  whdle  duty  with  brave  hearts.  Let  us  pay 
our  taxes,  subscribe  to  the  government  loans, 
work  at  our  several  tasks  with  all  our  strength, 
support  all  the  agencies  which  take  care  of 
our  troops  and  accept  the  stinting  in  fuel  or 
food  as  part  of  the  price  we  pay.  Let  our 
prime  care  be  the  welfare  and  warlike  efficiency 


34        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

of  the  men  at  the  front  and  in  the  training- 
camps.  Let  us  hold  to  sharp  account  every 
pubHc  servant  who,  in  any  way,  comes  short 
of  his  duty  in  this  respect.  But  let  us  also 
insist  that  the  soldiers  at  the  front  and  in  the 
camps  treat  every  shortcoming  merely  as  an 
obstacle  to  be  overcome  or  remedied  or  offset 
by  their  own  energy  and  courage  and  resource- 
fulness. The  one  absolute  essential  for  our 
people  is  to  insist  that  this  war  be  seen  through 
at  no  matter  what  cost,  until  it  is  crowned 
with  the  peace  of  overwhelming  victory  for 
the  right. 

There  are  foolish  persons  who  still  say  we 
ought  to  make  peace  now,  a  negotiated  peace, 
and  then  be  good  friends  with  Germany. 
These  persons  with  all  the  lessons  of  the  last 
four  years  fresh  in  their  minds  still  cling  pa- 
thetically to  the  belief  that  if  only  we  will  show 
that  we  are  harmless  Germany  will  begin  to 
love  us. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  German  hatred  of 
America  grew  to  be  a  positive  obsession  during 
the  two  and  a  half  years  of  our  ignoble  and 
cold-blooded  neutrahty,  when  we  submitted 
feebly  to  all  the  German  wrong-doing.     Let 


THIS  IS  THE  PEOPLE'S  WAR      35 

the  foolish  persons  who  doubt  this  read  the 
books  written  by  Mr.  Gerard,  our  ambassador 
at  Berhn,  and  the  book  written  by  Mr.  Gibson, 
secretary  of  our  legation  at  Brussels.  Still 
better  let  them  read  the  articles  by  Mr.  Curtis 
Roth,  until  recently  vice-consul  at  Plauen, 
Saxony. 

These  writings  show  the  extent  of  the  hatred 
with  which  Germany  regards  America,  a  hatred 
which  blossomed  into  full  growth  before  we 
went  to  war,  and  which  was  immensely  aggra- 
vated because  of  the  contempt  inspired  by  our 
tame  submission  to  outrage  for  over  two  years. 
Mr.  Roth's  testimony  is  peculiarly  interesting. 
He  shows  that  Berlin  actively  stimulated  the 
campaign  of  hatred  and  revenge  against  Amer- 
ica, that  the  German  people  accepted  the  view 
that  Americans  were  cowardly,  avaricious,  and 
effeminate,  that  they  singled  out  for  hatred 
the  German-Americans  beyond  all  other  Ameri- 
can citizens,  and  that  in  Germany  it  was  con- 
stantly announced  that  sooner  or  later  there 
would  be  a  day  of  reckoning  when  America 
would  have  to  pay  a  huge  indemnity  or  suffer 
the  fate  of  Belgium.  Mr.  Roth  shows  that 
the  German  people  think  exactly  as  their  lead- 


36        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

ers  think  and  that  they  now  hate  and  despise 
us  Americans  as  they  hate  no  others  of  their 
foes,  not  even  the  English.  Says  Mr.  Roth: 
**They  resolved  to  make  our  country  drink  to 
the  depths  out  of  the  bitter  cup  of  humiliation." 
Nothing  do  they  find  more  despicable  than  our 
talk  about  peace,  which  they  attributed  to 
cowardice  and  flabbiness.  They  look  on  the 
American  pacifist  as  a  weakling  and  as  a  God- 
given  tool  in  the  hands  of  German  interests. 

Ambassador  Gerard  reported  the  German 
state  of  mind  again  and  again;  in  October, 
191 5,  he  specifically  reported  the  Kaiser's  threat 
to  stand  no  nonsense  from  America,  and  exact 
full  payment  from  her;  but  President  Wilson 
kept  the  American  people  ignorant  of  the  facts, 
and  unprepared  to  defend  their  rights.  In 
practice  President  Wilson  holds  to  secret  diplo- 
macy, to  secretive  and  furtive  diplomacy,  with 
a  tenacity  as  marked  as  the  fluency  with  which 
in  theory  he  champions  its  abolition. 

All  Americans  who  were  both  thoroughly 
patriotic  and  well-informed  lifted  their  heads 
with  pride  when  at  last  this  nation  did  what  it 
would  have  been  infinitely  better  to  have  done 
two  years  previously — ^when  at  last  it  went  to 


THIS  IS  THE  PEOPLE'S  WAR      37 

war.  There  were  well-meaning  men  who  had 
been  misled  as  to  our  duty,  or  who  lacked 
vision,  and  who  in  consequence  were  even  at 
that  time  against  our  going  into  the  war.  But 
the  great  majority  of  these  men  are  now  as 
patriotic  as  any  one  else;  and  all  patriotic  and 
far-sighted  Americans  must  now  sternly  insist 
that  the  war  be  carried  through  to  a  completely 
victorious  conclusion,  at  no  matter  what  cost  of 
blood  and  treasure,  and  no  matter  how  long 
the  time.  All  those  who  now  ask  for  an  inde- 
cisive peace,  all  who  now  assail  our  allies  or 
directly  or  indirectly  apologize  for  or  give  aid 
and  comfort  to  Germany,  all  who  do  not  insist 
upon  the  utmost  speed  and  thorough  efficiency 
in  the  conduct  of  the  war,  are  false  to  America 
and  false  to  all  the  liberty-loving  nations  of 
mankind. 

Germany  respects  only  force.  She  rightly 
considers  the  sentimentality  (I  am  not  talking 
of  sentiment)  which  clamors  for  peace  without 
punishing  her  brutality  and  perfidy,  as  a  mere 
cloak  for  cowardice  and  lazy  weakness.  Every 
man  in  this  country  who  now  advocates  Ger- 
many's cause,  whether  directly  or  indirectly, 
or  who   demands    a   negotiated,    inconclusive 


38         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  ' 

peace  without  victory,  is  not  only  treacherously 
false  to  this  countr}^,  but  is  earning  Germany's 
utter  derision  for  himself  and  for  our  country 
in  so  far  as  it  is  influenced  by  him.  Mr.  Roth 
sums  up  by  saying  that  "the  average  German 
hates  this  country  to-day  with  a  hatred  far 
more  venomous,  far  more  implacable,  far  more 
unreasoning  than  the  hatred  he  has  visited 
upon  any  other  people."  Remember  that  this 
hatred  has  come  upon  us  because  for  two  years 
and  a  half  we  were  neutral,  because  by  failing 
to  stand  up  for  our  own  rights  we  lost  the 
respect  of  Germany,  because  by  our  failing 
to  prepare  we  incurred  her  utter  contempt, 
because  she  despised  and  despises  us  for  our 
weakness  in  dealing  with  the  pro-Germans 
here  at  home.  There  is  but  one  way  to  gain 
the  respect  of  the  Prussianized,  mihtarist,  and 
autocratic  Germany  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  and 
that  is  by  beating  her  to  her  knees.  And  in 
order  to  beat  her  as  thoroughly  and  speedily 
as  possible  we  should  treat  with  drastic  severity 
the  Hun  within  our  own  gates. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM 

THERE  are  two  demands  upon  the  spirit 
of  Americanism,  of  nationalism.  Each 
must  be  met.  Each  is  essential.  Each 
is  vital,  if  we  are  to  be  a  great  and  proud 
nation. 

The  first  is  that  we  shall  tolerate  no  kind 
of  divided  allegiance  in  this  country.  There 
is  no  room  for  the  hyphen  in  our  citizenship. 
There  is  no  place  for  a  50-50  Americanism  in 
the  United  States.  He  who  is  not  with  us, 
absolutely  and  without  reserve  of  any  kind,  is 
against  us,  and  should  be  treated  as  an  alien 
enemy,  to  be  interned  or  sent  out  of  the  coun- 
try. We  have  room  in  this  country  for  but 
one  flag,  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  we  should 
tolerate  no  allegiance  to  any  other  flag,  whether 
a  foreign  flag  or  the  red  flag  or  black  flag.  We 
have  room  for  but  one  loyalty,  loyalty  to  the 
United  States.  We  have  room  for  but  one 
language,    the    language   of  Washington    and 

39 


40         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

Lincoln,  the  language  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  the  Gettysburg  speech;  the 
English  language.  English  should  be  the  only- 
language  used  or  taught  in  the  primary  schools, 
public  or  private;  in  higher  schools  of  learning 
other  modern  languages  should  be  taught,  on 
an  equality  with  one  another;  but  the  language 
of  use  and  instruction  should  be  English.  We 
should  require  by  law  that  within  a  reasonable 
length  of  time,  a  time  long  enough  to  prevent 
needless  hardship,  every  newspaper  should  be 
published  in  English.  The  language  of  the 
church  and  the  Sunday-school  should  be  Eng- 
lish. The  government  should  provide  night 
schools  free  for  every  immigrant  who  comes 
here,  require  him  to  attend  them,  and  return 
him  to  his  own  country  unless  at  the  end  of 
five  years  he  has  learned  to  speak  and  read 
English.  This  war  has  shown  us  in  vivid  and 
startling  fashion  the  danger  of  allowing  our 
people  to  separate  along  lines  of  racial  origin 
and  linguistic  cleavage.  We  shall  be  guilty  of 
criminal  folly  if  we  fail  to  insist  on  the  com- 
plete and  thoroughgoing  unification  of  our 
people. 
The  German-American  Alliance  and  all  simi- 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    41 

lar  bodies,  the  Sinn  Feiners,  the  East  Side 
Russian  revolutionary  organizations,  the  Ger- 
manized Socialists,  and  most  of  the  leaders  of 
Mr.  Townley's  Non-Partisan  League  and  the 
I.  W.  W.  are  anti-American  to  the  core.  In 
Everybody's  Magazine  for  December  last  will 
be  found  extracts  from  German-American  pa- 
pers, and  from  Sinn  Fein  and  Yiddish  pro- 
German  papers  which  are  as  profoundly  anti- 
American  as  if  they  were  published  in  Berlin. 
It  is  true  that  parallel  with  them  are  given  ex- 
tracts just  as  mischievous  from  certain  papers 
printed  in  English,  like  the  Hearst  papers. 
Morally  the  latter  are  even  more  to  blame 
than  the  former;  but  in  their  case  the  evil 
teaching  is  at  any  rate  in  a  language  which 
permits  us  to  know  about  it,  and  to  act  about 
it  if  we  choose;  whereas  the  foreign-language 
papers  work  behind  a  veil  which  shuts  them 
out  from  the  sight  of  the  average  citizen. 

There  is  no  permanent  use  in  half-measures. 
It  is  silly  to  be  lackadaisical  over  men  of  Ger- 
man origin  having  to  fight  the  Germans  of 
Prussianized  Germany.  Washington  and  most 
of  his  associates  were  of  English  origin;  never- 
theless they  fought  the  British  King.     If  they 


42        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

had  not  done  so  we  would  not  now  be  a  nation. 
If  the  Americans  of  German  blood  do  not  now 
fight  against  Germany  and  feel  against  Ger- 
many as  strongly  as  the  rest  of  us  they  are  not 
fit  to  be  Americans  at  all.  The  deeds  com- 
mitted by  King  George  and  his  servants  which 
led  up  to  the  Revolution  were  trivial  compared 
to  the  hideous  iniquities  perpetrated  upon  us 
by  the  servants,  tools,  and  agents  of  the  Ho- 
henzollerns  during  the  last  four  years.  If  peace 
should  come  to-morrow,  nevertheless  our  bit- 
ter experience  should  teach  us  for  a  generation 
to  watch  keenly  for  German  propaganda  in 
this  country,  to  treat  with  contemptuous  scorn 
the  Hearsts,  Vierecks,  and  the  like,  and  to 
crush  under  our  heel  every  movement  that 
smacks  in  the  smallest  degree  of  playing  the 
German  game. 

This  is  one  of  the  demands  to  be  made  in 
the  name  of  the  spirit  of  American  national- 
ism. The  other  is  equally  important.  We 
must  treat  every  good  American  of  German 
or  of  any  other  origin,  without  regard  to 
his  creed,  as  on  a  full  and  exact  equality  with 
every  other  good  American,  and  set  our  faces 
like   flint   against   the   creatures  who   seek   to 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    43 

discriminate  against  such  an  American,  or  to 
hold  against  him  the  birthplace  of  himself  or 
his  parents.  The  friends  of  whom  I  am  proud- 
est and  in  whom  I  most  beheve  include  men 
like  Loeb  and  Herman  Hagedorn  and  Hans 
Zinser  and  Dolge,  and  the  late  George  Meyer 
and  August  Vogel,  and  innumerable  others, 
who  are  themselves  in  the  army,  or  whose  sons 
are  in  the  army,  and  whose  patriotism  entitles 
them  to  fill  any  position  from  the  presidency 
down.  To  discriminate  in  any  way,  because 
they  are  in  whole  or  in  part  of  German  blood, 
against  such  men  as  these,  who  are  typical 
Americans  of  the  very  best  kind  this  country 
yields,  is  a  base  infamy  from  the  personal 
standpoint,  and  from  the  public  standpoint 
is  utterly  un-American  and  profoundly  un- 
patriotic. Among  the  Americans  who  have 
won  most  honor  at  the  front  are  very  many  of 
German  blood.  The  battalions,  companies, 
squadrons,  and  batteries  which  my  sons  com- 
mand, and  have  commanded,  are  full  of  such 
men.  There  is  no  better  officer  or  more  typical 
American  in  the  entire  American  navy  than 
my  former  White  House  aide,  Osterhaus.  I 
read   how   Lieutenant   Edward   Rickenbacher, 


44        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

the  crack  flier  of  our  air  service,  attacked  single- 
handed  and  destroyed  two  German  airplanes, 
and  then  on  his  way  back  across  our  lines  saw 
a  fellow  American  flier,  Lieutenant  James  A. 
Meissner,  assailed  by  a  German  airplane  while 
he  was  attacking  another;  and  Rickenbacher 
brought  down  the  latter,  and  the  two  Amer- 
icans returned  in  triumph.  From  their  names 
I  gather  that  the  two  men  are  at  least  in  part 
of  German  blood  (as  I  am  myself).  They  have 
made  all  good  Americans  their  debtors ! 

The  other  day  I  spoke  at  Springfield,  Ohio, 
for  speeding  up  the  war  until  Germany  was 
beaten  to  her  knees.  I  was  introduced  by  the 
President  of  Wittenberg  College,  a  Lutheran 
college  founded  by  Germans,  but  now  straight- 
out  American,  just  as  much  as  Harvard,  Yale, 
or  Princeton,  with  two  hundred  of  her  sons  in 
our  army  or  navy.  The  invocation  was  by  a 
Catholic  monsignor,  a  chaplain-major  in  the 
United  States  army,  born  in  Germany;  the 
benediction  was  by  a  Lutheran  minister  of 
German  parentage.  But  we  were  all  four  of 
us  Americans  and  nothing  else,  and  we  all 
preached  the  same  straight-out  doctrine  of 
simon-pure    Americanism — and    in    the    same 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    45 

language,  English.  At  Martinsville,  Ind.,  I 
was  introduced  by  Mayor  Schmidt,  whose  two 
sons  were  in  the  army;  one* was  wounded  and 
was  in  the  same  hospital  with  one  of  my  sons. 
At  Milwaukee,  I  was  introduced  by  August 
Vogel;  three  of  his  sons  were  in  the  army,  and 
the  fourth  was  only  waiting  until  he  was  eigh- 
teen. In  one  hospital  on  the  cot  next  to  another 
of  my  sons  was  another  young  officer,  wounded 
also.  He  had  shown  exceptional  gallantry; 
and  when  a  Red  Cross  worker  asked  him  his 
name  he  answered:  "Say!  Don't  faint!  My 
name  is  Von  Holzendorf.  Wouldn't  the  Huns 
feel  gay  if  they  knew  they  had  almost  got  a 
man  of  that  name.?"  The  troops  commanded 
by  my  sons  have  included  at  least  as  many 
men  whose  parents  were  born  in  foreign  coun- 
tries— England  and  Ireland,  Germany,  France, 
Belgium,  Italy,  and  the  Scandinavian  and 
Slavonic  lands — as  men  whose  parents  were  of 
old  native  American  stock;  some  were  Protes- 
tants, some  Catholics,  some  Jews;  and  all  did 
equally  well,  and  all  were  Americans  and  noth- 
ing but  Americans. 

I    read    in    the    press    how    the    New  York 
Liederkranz    has    established    English    as    the 


46        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

official  language  of  the  club,  and  passed  a 
resolution  providing  for  the  expulsion  of  any 
member  of  the  club  who  is  guilty  directly  or 
indirectly  of  an  act  or  word  hostile  to  the 
United  States  or  its  alHes.  As  its  president 
said,  the  club  is  **ioc  per  cent  American"; 
and  between  one  and  two  hundred  of  its  mem- 
bers or  their  sons  and  nephews  now  wear  the 
uniform  of  the  United  States  army  or  navy. 

Indeed  the  club  has  thought  of  changing  its 
name.  This  I  hope  will  not  be  done.  "Ger- 
man" should  be  left  out  of  the  name;  but 
Liederkranz  is  just  as  good  a  name  for  a  club 
as  Knickerbocker,  just  as  good  a  name  as  is 
William  and  Mary  for  a  college;  and  I  think 
it  a  mistake  to  lose  the  sense  of  historic  con- 
tinuity by  abandoning  any  such  name,  which 
has  grown  to  possess  many  American  associa- 
tions. Moreover,  the  Liederkranz  type  of 
club  is  one  which,  when  thoroughly  Ameri- 
canized, and  when  Americans  of  all  national 
origins  are  admitted  freely  into  it,  and  when 
developed  along  our  own  lines,  makes  a  dis- 
tinctly individual  and  most  valuable  contri- 
bution to  American  social  life. 

So  it  is  with  the  best  type  of  "German- 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    47 

American"  newspaper.  Many  of  these  papers 
have  a  fine  and  honorable  record.  At  this 
moment  such  a  paper  as  the  New-Yorker 
Herold  is  doing  capital  work;  and  it  was 
founded  by  a  "forty-eighter"  who  stanchly 
upheld  Lincoln  and  the  cause  of  the  Union 
and  of  Liberty.  There  is  just  one  way  by 
which  to  preserve  in  its  usefulness  such  a  paper, 
and  that  is  to  have  it  gradually  change  from 
German  into  English.  If  it  continues  German 
it  will  either  die  or  cease  to  be  useful  to  the 
country.  For  example,  the  Brookly^ier  Freie 
Presse  has  just  suspended  publication,  be- 
cause, in  spite  of  its  patriotism,  its  patriotic 
readers  grew  to  wish  to  read  papers  printed  in 
the  tongue  of  their  fellow  countrymen.  It  was 
founded  by  a  German,  a  Union  soldier;  four 
of  his  grandsons  are  now  in  the  mihtary  ser- 
vice of  the  United  States.  The  big  press 
associations  of  the  country  should  step  in  and 
patriotically  offer  their  services  for  English 
editions  of  such  papers  if  they  will  change  from 
German  to  EngHsh.  Every  paper  in  a  foreign 
language  should  be  required  to  be  pubHshed 
in  English  after  a  reasonable  time;  but  many 
such  papers  are  entirely  loyal  and  have  been 


48        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

very  useful;  and  we  should  make  every  effort 
to  enable  them  to  continue  as  American  news- 
papers, proud  of  their  past,  but  changed  as 
the  changing  times  require,  and  henceforth 
printed  in  the  language  of  the  American  people. 

When  I  was  Governor  of  New  York  I  was  a 
member  of  the  same  Dutch  Reformed  church 
to  which  two  and  a  half  centuries  earlier 
Governor  Peter  Stuyvesant  had  belonged; 
and  we  sat  at  communion  at  a  long  table  in  the 
aisle  just  as  he  and  his  associates  had  done. 
It  was  pleasant,  indeed  wise,  to  keep  alive 
the  tradition,  the  sense  of  historic  continuity. 
But  we  used  English,  not  Dutch,  as  our  lan- 
guage; our  minister  had  a  Scotch  name;  one- 
half  the  congregation  had  English  or  other 
non-Dutch  names.  We  were  not  exiled  or 
transplanted  Hollanders.  We  were  Americans 
and  nothing  but  Americans;  we  were  at 
home  in  America,  and  only  in  America. 

Many  politicians  and  many  newspapers, 
actuated  by  varying  motives,  have  upheld  the 
theory  of  separate  nationalities  in  America — 
a  theory  absolutely  fatal  to  true  American- 
ism. Recently  the  New  York  World  was 
quoted   as   demanding   the   stopping   of  "the 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    49 

crusade  against  German  language  newspapers" 
on  the  ground  that  "we  need  the  true  Germany 
in  America  to  fight  the  false  Germany  in 
Europe."  There  could  be  no  demand  more 
mischievously  unpatriotic  and  anti-American. 
It  is  precisely  the  demand  which  a  far-seeing 
Ambassador  BernstorfF  would  most  warmly 
encourage.  We  do  not  need  a  "Germany  in 
America,"  whether  true  or  false,  any  more 
than  we  need  an  "England  in  America,"  or 
an  "Ireland  in  America,"  or  any  other  nation- 
of-somewhere-else  in  America.  To  encourage 
"the  true  Germany  in  America"  is  to  encour- 
age a  separate  nationality  within  our  borders, 
which  may  at  any  time  define  "truth"  and 
"falseness"  in  terms  not  of  America  but  of 
Germany.  No  good  citizen  or  true  American 
w411  accept  the  World's  position  in  this  matter. 
We  must  resolutely  refuse  to  permit  our  great 
nation,  our  great  America,  to  be  split  into  a 
score  of  little  replicas  of  European  nationalities, 
and  to  become  a  Balkan  Peninsula  on  a  larger 
scale.  We  are  a  nation,  and  not  a  hodge- 
podge of  foreign  nationahties.  We  are  a 
people,  and  not  a  polyglot  boarding-house. 
We  must  insist  on  a  unified  nationality,  with 


50         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

one  flag,  one  language,  one  set  of  national 
ideals.  We  must  shun  as  we  would  shun  the 
plague  all  efforts  to  make  us  separate  in 
groups  of  separate  nationalities.  We  must 
all  of  us  be  Americans,  and  nothing  but  Ameri- 
cans; and  all  good  Americans  must  stand  on 
an  equality  of  consideration  and  respect,  with- 
out regard  to  their  creed  or  to  the  land  from 
which  their  forebears  came. 

Elsie  Singmaster,  whose  writings,  perhaps 
especially  those  deahng  with  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg,  are  sermons  teaching  what  is  best 
and  simplest  and  loftiest  in  the  American  spirit, 
has  written  me  a  letter  setting  forth  what  I 
have  to  say  better  than  I  can  do  it  myself. 

Gettysburg,  Pa.,  June  3,  1918. 
My  dear  Colonel  Roosevelt: 

I  have  been  reading  with  pleasure  an  account  of 
your  timely  address  to  the  Germans  of  Milwaukee, 
and  it  occurred  to  me  that  you  might  be  interested 
in  the  earliest  piece  of  similar  advice,  which  I  en- 
close herewith.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  there  were 
so  few  early  and  later  German  Americans  of  Pas- 
torius's  mind. 

Since  1914  I  have  taken  pains  to  observe  the 
attitude  of  the  Pennsylvania  Germans,  and  I  be- 
lieve that  the  majority  are  as  heartily  in  favor  of 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    51 

this  war  as  any  other  good  Americans.  A  "foreign 
German"  in  a  Pennsylvania  German  village  has  for 
generations  been  as  much  of  an  alien  as  an  Italian 
or  a  Spaniard  and  has  had  less  in  common  with  the 
inhabitants. 

Last  month  I  spoke  each  evening  in  some  little 
church  or  school  house  of  our  county  for  our  local 
Red  Cross  organization,  and  I  am  beginning  to  feel 
that  we  are  a  nation  aroused.  To  drive  miles  on 
a  mountain  road  which  seems  to  be  really  a  creek 
bed,  to  speak  to  a  handful  of  people,  to  be  listened 
to  with  attention  which  not  even  the  calling  of  the 
whip-poor-wills  outside  or  the  wailing  of  the  babies 
within  can  affect  in  the  least,  and  then  to  watch 
an  old  man,  poor  in  worldly  goods,  but  rich  in  pa- 
triotism, rise  to  give  the  first  five  or  ten  dollars 
of  a  generous  donation  because  he  "went  out  in  '61 
and  stayed  till  the  end  and  wants  to  help  the  boys 
now" — there  is  an  experience  to  be  remembered 
always. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

Elsie  Singmaster  Lewars. 


The  letter  of  Pastorius  to  his  children,  v^ritten 
in  1695,  ^^^^  in  P^rt  as  follow^s:  the  advice 
was  sound  then  (at  the  time  when  certain  of 
my  own  forebears  who  were  German  or  "high 
Dutch"  were  helping  found  Germantown), 
and  it  is  even  sounder  now,  when  the  oppor- 


52        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

tunity  is  to  become  not  English  colonists  but 
American  citizens. 


Dear  Children:  John,  Samuel  and  Henry  Pas- 
torius:  Though  you  are  {Germano  sanguine  nati) 
of  high  Dutch  parents,  yet  remember  that  your 
father  was  Naturalized,  and  ye  born  in  an  English 
colony,  Consequently  each  of  you  Anglus  Natus 
an  Englishmen  by  Birth.  Therefore  it  would  be 
a  shame  for  you  if  you  should  be  ignorant  of  the 
English  tongue,  the  tongue  of  your  Countrymen; 
but  that  you  may  learn  the  better  I  have  left  a 
Book  for  you  both,  and  commend  the  same  to  your 
reiterated  perusal.  If  you  should  not  get  much 
of  the  Latin,  nevertheless  read  ye  the  English  part 
oftentimes  OVER  AND  OVER  AND  OVER. 
For  the  drippings  of  the  house-eaves  in  time  make 
a  hole  in  a  hard  stone. 

Treat  all  Americans  as  on  the  same  footing; 
and  let  no  man  live  permanently  in  this  coun- 
try unless  he  is  an  American  and  nothing  but 
an  American. 

We  are  the  fellow  countrymen  of  Washing- 
ton and  Lincoln,  of  Lighthorse  Harry  Lee  and 
his  great  son,  of  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Far- 
ragut,  of  Marion  and  Paul  Revere  and  Schuy- 
ler,   of   Washington's    General    Sullivan    and 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    53 

Lincoln's  General  Sheridan.  These  men  were 
of  diverse  ancestry;  their  forefathers  came 
from  England  or  Ireland  or  Scotland  or  Hol- 
land or  France  or  Spain.  But  they  were  Amer- 
icans, and  nothing  else;  and  if  we  are  really 
to  be  loyal  to  their  spirit,  we,  in  our  day,  must 
be  Americans,  and  nothing  else.  And,  above 
all,  we  must  be  Americans,  and  only  Americans, 
in  the  face  of  any  and  every  foreign  foe. 

We  are  also,  and  just  as  much,  the  fellow 
countrymen  of  Muhlenberg  and  Custer.  There 
is  no  more  typically  American  figure  in  the 
Revolutionary  War  than  that  of  Muhlenberg, 
the  American  of  pure  German  blood,  the  pastor 
of  a  Lutheran  church  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution.  On  the  Sunday  after  the  call 
for  arms  came  he  mounted  his  pulpit;  he  ad- 
monished his  flock  that  there  was  a  time  for 
prayer  and  a  time  for  battle,  and  that  the  time 
for  battle  had  come.  Casting  aside  his  frock, 
he  appeared  in  the  uniform  of  a  colonel  of  the 
Continental  Army;  and  on  many  a  stricken 
field  he  proved  his  valor  and  devotion.  Custer, 
a  man  of  German  descent,  was  one  of  the  most 
gallant  and  heroic  figures  of  the  Civil  War 
and  the  Indian  Wars;    his  name  and  career 


54        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

made  up  one  of  the  finest  traditions  of  our 
army.  In  the  Civil  War  there  fought  many, 
many  men  of  German  birth;  Sigel,  Oster- 
haus,  Hentzleman;  innumerable  others.  They 
proved  their  Americanism  by  their  deeds. 
Their  grandsons  are  in  our  armies  and  navy 
to-day.  Their  undivided  loyalty  is  given  to 
one  flag,  to  our  flag.  They  are  incapable  of 
a  loyalty  diff'erent  from  that  of  their  fellow 
Americans  of  diff'erent  blood.  These  fellow 
Americans  of  theirs  who  happen  to  be  of  dif- 
ferent blood  must  in  their  turn  see  to  it  that 
any  one  who  discriminates  against  these  men 
because  they  are  of  German  blood  is  himself 
branded  as  a  traitor. 

I  speak  as  an  American  who  has  German 
blood  in  his  veins.  I  speak  on  behalf  of  all 
loyal  Americans  who  are,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
of  German  blood.  Our  devotion  knows  no 
other  country  but  this.  With  all  our  hearts 
we  are  against  Germany  to-day  exactly  as 
the  loyal  Americans  of  English  descent  who 
followed  Washington  were  against  England 
in  their  day.  We  feel  it  incumbent  on  us  to 
be,  if  anything,  a  little  more  ready  to  follow 
the  call  of  America  against  Germany  precisely 


SQUARE   DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    55 

because  of  our  blood.  Our  hearts  burn  with 
wrath  over  the  horrible  brutality,  cruelty,  and 
treachery  of  the  Germany  of  the  Hohenzollerns. 
We  abhor,  and  would  punish  with  relentless 
sternness,  the  American  traitors  of  German 
blood  who  in  this  crisis  are  false  to  America, 
or  hostile  to  the  Allies  of  America,  or  who  in 
any  way  or  shape  serve  Germany.  And  there- 
fore we  feel  the  keenest  indignation  against 
all  men  who  in  any  way  seek  to  discriminate 
against  us  because  of  the  land  from  which  our 
forefathers  came.  We  do  not  beg  as  a  favor, 
we  challenge  as  a  right,  full  equality  of  respect 
and  of  treatment  for  all  our  fellow  Ameri- 
cans. 

I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  one  of  the 
very  best  Americans  I  know,  a  Congregational 
clergyman,  Frazer  Metzger,  a  man  whose  father 
and  mother  both  were  born  in  Germany.  He 
was  an  exceptionally  high-minded  and  useful 
citizen  in  time  of  peace.  Since  this  war  began 
his  soul  has  flamed  with  anger  against  the  ruth- 
less wickedness  of  Germany;  and  he  has  led 
with  fiery  ardor  in  every  patriotic  movement 
to  strengthen  America's  hands  and  to  exalt 
her  soul  so  that  she  may  accept  no  peace  with- 


56        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

out  overwhelming  victory.  Yet  mean-souled 
creatures  have  assailed  this  man  because  he 
is  of  German  blood.    He  writes  me: 

This  distrust  is  putting  fear  into  the  hearts  of 
some  of  us,  which  fear  is  not  personal  but  national. 
I  understand  that  Washington  looks  upon  Goethals 
as  pro-German,  and  I  can't  believe  it.  Take  my 
own  case.  Since  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  I  have 
devoted  practically  all  my  time  and  spent  all  my 
little  savings  for  America  and  against  the  inde- 
scribable menace  of  German  dominance.  Yet  I 
find  myself  laid  open  to  the  suspicion  of  being  pro- 
German,  charged  with  hiding  my  German  pro- 
clivities behind  a  blatant  and  insincere  loyalty, 
merely  because  I  am  of  German  descent. 

The  people  who  thus  assail  a  high-minded 
American  because  he  is  of  German  blood  are 
as  base  as  if  they  slandered  the  memories  of 
Nathan  Hale  and  his  New  England  comrades 
of  the  Revolution  because  they  were  of  Eng- 
lish blood.  The  finest  Americans  in  our  land 
to-day  are  the  Americans  of  German  blood 
whose  whole-hearted  loyalty  is  given  to  this 
Repubhc  as  against  all  her  foes.  One  of  the 
ablest  and  most  gallant  men  in  our  army,  born 
in  Germany,  recently  wrote  me:  "Your  coun- 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    57 

try  is  my  country,  and  my  country  is  your 
country,  and  there  is  no  other  country  for  either 
of  us."  There  spoke  the  true  American  !  How 
can  we  sufficiently  express  our  scorn  of  those 
who  would  in  any  way  discriminate  against 
such  Americans  ? 

The  persons  who  attempt  such  discrimina- 
tion are  themselves  utterly  unpatriotic.  By 
their  actions  they  inflict  a  cruel  wrong  on  their 
fellow  countrymen.  Moreover,  they  do  their 
best  to  drive  these  same  fellow  countrymen 
away  from  their  loyalty.  There  are  plenty 
of  men  of  German  blood  who  are  disloyal; 
and  there  are  plenty  of  men  of  Irish  and  Jewish 
and  native- American  blood  who  are  disloyal — 
indeed,  the  most  influential  leaders  of  dis- 
loyalty in  this  country  have  been  of  old  native 
stock.  Punish  every  disloyal  man;  but  punish 
him  because  he  is  disloyal,  not  because  of  his 
blood.  The  government  ought  at  once  to 
establish  martial  law  wherever  there  are  out- 
rages against  person  or  property  by  German 
spies  or  by  pro-German  American  sympathizers, 
or  by  Irishmen  whose  hatred  of  England  makes 
them  disloyal  to  America,  or  by  I.  W.  W.  people, 
or  by  any  other  enemies  of  our  country.    The 


58        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

government  ought  to  visit  all  such  offenders 
with  the  full  severity  of  military  law.  The 
time  for  shilly-shallying  is  long  past.  Any 
newspaper,  whether  published  in  German  or 
in  English,  which  directly  or  indirectly  supports 
traitorous  action  should  be  promptly  sup- 
pressed. But  the  great  mass  of  Americans  who 
are  wholly  or  partly  of  German  blood  are  ex- 
actly as  loyal  as  Americans  of  any  other  blood; 
and  it  is  a  foul  wrong  not  to  treat  all  exactly 
alike. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  trouble  is  mainly 
due  to  the  action  of  the  openly  or  covertly 
disloyal  German-Americans  and  of  the  openly 
or  covertly  disloyal  German-American  press, 
and  of  the  Irish-Americans  who  are  the  paid 
or  unpaid  agents  of  Germany,  and  of  the  na- 
tive American  politicians  and  editors  who  have 
pandered  to  the  disloyal  foreign  vote.  Among 
all  these  paid  or  unpaid  agents  of  Germany, 
the  disloyal  men  of  German  origin  have  been 
the  most  evil  enemies  of  the  entirely  [oyal  mass 
of  American  citizens  of  German  origin;  and 
this  should  be  recognized  by  all  loyal  citi- 
zens. 

The    disloyal    man,    whether   his    disloyalty 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    59 

is  open  or  disguised,  is  our  worst  foe;  but  close 
behind  him  comes  the  man  who,  whether  from 
wickedness  or  foolishness,  assails  his  loyal  fel- 
low citizens  because  of  the  blood  that  flows  in 
their  veins. 

Indeed,  this  war  against  the  brutal  mihtaristic 
and  capitalistic  tyranny  of  Germany  is,  in  a 
sense,  pecuHarly  the  war  of  all  true  Americans 
of  German  blood,  exactly  as  the  war  of  the 
Revolution  was,  in  a  sense,  peculiarly  the  war 
of  all  true  Americans  of  English  blood.  It 
should  mark  the  rebirth  of  our  nation;  of  a 
nation  dedicated  to  orderly  freedom  and  to 
the  cause  of  justice  for  all  men.  We  are  a  new 
people;  we  differ  from  all  other  peoples;  we 
are  neither  English  nor  Irish,  neither  German 
nor  French;  we  are  Americans,  and  only  Amer- 
icans. We  are  bound  to  treat  all  other  nations 
on  their  conduct,  and  only  on  their  conduct, 
in  each  crisis  as  it  arises. 

Above  all,  we  are  bound  to  treat  all  our 
fellow  Americans  with  reference  solely  to  their 
whole-hearted  loyalty  to  American  ideals  as 
embodied  in  the  great  Americans  whose  names 
I  have  used  above.  True  Americans  who  are 
in  whole  or  in  part  of  Germany  blood  claim 


6o        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

nothing  except  the  right  to  serve  America  and 
to  be  judged  according  to  their  service. 

Just  what  and  who  the  American  fighting 
man — and  therefore  the  best  American — is 
when  at  his  best,  may  be  seen  in  the  following 
poem  by  Mr.  James  W.  Foley,  Many  years 
ago,  in  the  cow  country,  on  the  Little  Missouri, 
Mr.  Foley's  father  was  a  valued  friend  and 
neighbor  of  mine;  and  the  poet  himself  was 
the  "Foley's  boy"  of  the  Ann  Arbor  Professor 
incident,  recorded  on  page  426  of  my  "Wilder- 
ness Hunter."    The  poem  runs  as  follows: 

YANKS 

O'Leary,   from   Chicago,   and   a   first-class    fightin* 

man, 
For  his  father  was  from  Kerry,  where  the  gentle 

art  began: 
Sergeant  Dennis  P.  O'Leary,  from  somewhere  on 

Archie  Road, 
Dodgin'  shells  and  smellin'  powder  while  the  battle 

ebbed  and  flowed. 

And  the  captain  says:  "O'Leary,  from  your  fight- 
in'  company 

Pick  a  dozen  fightin'  Yankees  and  come  skirmishin' 
with  me; 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    6i 

Pick  a  dozen  fightin'  devils,  and  I  know  it's  you 

who  can." 
And  O'Leary,  he  saluted  like  a  first-class  fightin' 

man. 

O'Leary's   eye   was    piercin'    and   O'Leary's   voice 

was  clear: 
"Dimitri  Georgoupoulos !"    And  Dimitri  answered 

"Here!" 
Then    "Vladimir    Slaminsky!      Step    three    paces 

to  the  front, 
For  we're  wantin'  you  to  join  us  in  a  little  Heinie 

hunt!" 

"Garibaldi  Ravioli!"     Garibaldi  was  to  share; 
And  "Ole  Axel  Kettleson!"  and  "Thomas  Scalp- 

the-Bear!" 
Who  was  Choctaw  by  inheritance,  bred  in  the  blood 

and  bones. 
But  set  down  in  army  records  by  the  name  of 

Thomas  Jones. 

"Van  Winkle  Schuyler  Stuyvesant!"    Van  Winkle 

was  a  bud 
From  the  ancient  tree  of  Stuyvesant  and  had  it  in 

his  blood; 
"Don  Miguel  de  Colombo!"     Don  Miguel's  next 

kin 
Were  across  the  Rio  Grande  when  Don  Miguel 

went  in. 


62         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

"Ulysses  Grant  O'Sheridan!"  Ulysses'  sire,  you 
see, 

Had  been  at  Appomattox  near  the  famous  apple- 
tree; 

And  "Patrick  Michael  Casey!"  Patrick  Michael, 
you  can  tell, 

Was  a  fightin'  man  by  nature  with  three  fightin' 
names  as  well. 

"Joe  Wheeler  Lee!"     And  Joseph  had  a  pair  of 

fightin'  eyes; 
And  his  granddad  was  a  Johnny,  as  perhaps  you 

might  surmise; 
Then    "Robert    Bruce    MacPherson!"      And    the 

Yankee  squad  was  done 
With    "Isaac   Abie    Cohen!"    once    a    lightweight 

champion. 

Then  O'Leary   paced   'em   forward   and,   says   he: 

"You  Yanks,  fall  in!" 
And  he  marched   'em  to  the  captain.     "Let  the 

skirmishin'  begin. 
Says  he,     "The  Yanks  are  comin',  and  you  beat 

'em  if  you  can  !" 
And  saluted  like  a  soldier  and  first-class  fightin' 

man! 

By  rights  this  skirmish  squad  should  have 
included  a  couple  of  men  of  German  parentage, 
and  two  or  th-ree  others  whose  ancestors  came 


SQUARE  DEAL  IN  AMERICANISM    63 

over  in  the  Mayflower;  and  then  it  would 
have  been  an  accurate  cross-section  of  the 
American  people.  This  war  has  been  the  real 
crucible,  the  functioning  crucible  for  our  na- 
tion; and  now  no  matter  what  our  ancestry, 
all  of  us  who  are  Americans  at  all  are  Amer- 
icans and  nothing  else. 


CHAPTER  V 

SOUND  NATIONALISM  AND  SOUND 
INTERNAIIONALISM 

THE  tremendous  thrust  of  the  Allies 
during  the  last  three  months,  in  which 
the  hard-fighting  soldiers  of  the  Amer- 
ican army  have  borne  so  distinguished  and 
honorable  a  part,  has  meant  grave  military 
disaster  to  Germany.  Therefore  it  has  resulted 
in  a  renewal  of  the  German  peace  offensive. 
No  man  can  prophesy  in  these  matters;  but 
the  Germans  may  yet  continue  the  war  for  a 
long  time;  and  therefore  we  should  prepare  to 
have  in  France  an  army  of  four  million  fight- 
ing men  (not  including  non-combatants)  for 
the  battle  front  next  spring.  But  the  Germans 
seem  likely  to  try  to  make  peace  instead  of 
continuing  the  war  and  are  apparently  seeking 
to  cover  their  retention  of  some  of  their  ill- 
gotten  substantial  gains  by  nominal  and  theo- 
retical support  of  some  ghttering  proposal 
about  a  league  of  nations  to  end  all  war.    The;^ 

64 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  65 

thereby  hope  to  keep  part  of  their  booty  by 
appealing  to  what  is  vaguely  called  interna- 
tionaHsm,  and  getting  the  support  not  only  of 
sentimentalists  who  do  not  like  to  look  un- 
pleasant facts  in  the  face,  but  also  of  the  good 
people  who  are  appalled  and  puzzled  and  panic- 
stricken  by  the  horror  Germany  has  brought  on 
the  world,  and  who,  instead  of  bracing  them- 
selves to  put  down  this  horror  by  their  own 
hardened  strength  and  iron  will,  clutch  at  any 
quack  remedy  which  false  prophets  hold  out 
as  offering  a  substitute  for  such  action. 

Therefore  it  is  well  at  this  time  for  sober 
and  resolute  men  and  women  to  apply  that 
excellent  variety  of  wisdom  colloquially  known 
as  "horse-sense"  to  the  problems  of  national- 
ism and  internationaHsm.  These  problems 
will  not  be  solved  by  rhetoric.  Least  of  all 
will  they  be  solved  by  competitive  rhetoric. 
Masters  'of  phrasemaking  may  win  immense, 
although  evanescent,  applause  by  outvying 
one  another  in  words  that  glitter,  but  these 
glittering  words  will  not  have  one  shred  of 
lasting  effect  on  the  outcome  except  in  so  far 
as  they  may  have  a  very  mischievous  effect 
if  they  persuade  good,  ignorant  people  to  aban- 


66        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

don  the  possible  real  good  in  the  fantastic  effort 
to  achieve  an  impossible  unreal  perfection.  Let 
honest  men  and  women  remember  that  this  kind 
of  phrasemongering  does  not  represent  idealism. 
The  only  idealism  worth  considering  in  the 
workaday  business  of  this  world  is  appHed 
idealism.  This  is  merely  another  way  of  say- 
ing that  permanent  good  to  humanity  is  most 
apt  to  come  from  actually  trying  to  reduce 
ideals  to  practice,  and  this  means  that  the 
ideals  must  be  substantially  or  at  least  measur- 
ably realizable. 

The  professed  internationalist  usually  sneers 
at  nationalism,  at  patriotism,  and  at  what  we 
call  Americanism.  He  bids  us  forswear  our 
love  of  country  in  the  name  of  love  of  the 
world  at  large.  We  nationaHsts  answer  that 
he  has  begun  at  the  wrong  end;  we  say  that, 
as  the  world  now  is,  it  is  only  the  man  who 
ardently  loves  his  country  first  who  in  actual 
practice  can  help  any  other  country  at  all. 
The  internationalist  bids  us  to  promise  to 
abandon  the  idea  of  keeping  America  perma- 
nently ready  to  defend  her  rights  by  her 
strength  and  to  trust,  instead,  to  scraps  of 
paper,    to   written    agreements    by   which    all 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  67 

nations  form  a  league,  and  agree  to  disarm, 
and  agree  each  to  treat  all  other  nations,  big 
or  little,  on  an  exact  equality.  We  national- 
ists answer  that  we  are  ready  to  join  any 
league  to  enforce  peace  or  similar  organization 
which  offers  a  likelihood  of  in  some  measure 
lessening  the  number  and  the  area  of  future 
wars,  but  only  on  condition  that  in  the  first 
place  we  do  not  promise  what  will  not  or  ought 
not  to  be  performed,  or  be  guilty  of  proclaim- 
ing a  sham,  and  that  in  the  second  place  we 
do  not  surrender  our  right  and  duty  to  prepare 
our  own  strength  for  our  own  defense  instead 
of  trusting  to  the  above-mentioned  scraps  of 
paper.  In  justification  we  point  to  certain 
very  obvious  facts  which  ought  to  be  patent 
to  every  man  of  common  sense. 

Any  such  league  of  nations  must,  of  course, 
include  the  nine  nations  which  have  the  great- 
est military  strength,  or  it  will  be  utterly  im- 
potent. These  nine  nations  include  Germany, 
Austria,  Turkey,  and  Russia.  The  first  three 
have  abundantly  shown  during  the  last  four 
years  that  no  written  or  other  promise  of  the 
most  binding  kind  has  even  the  slightest  effect 
upon  their  actions.     The  fourth,  Russia,  un- 


68        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

der  the  lead  and  dominion  of  the  Bolsheviki, 
has  just  been  guilty  of  the  grossest  possible 
betrayal  of  her  Allies  and  of  the  small  kindred 
Slavonic  peoples  and  of  world  democracy. 
This  betrayal  was  in  the  interest  of  a  military 
and  despotic  autocracy  and  included  the  di- 
rect violation  of  Russia's  plighted  faith.  Un- 
der such  conditions  it  is  unnecessary  to  say 
that  at  present  Russia's  signature  to  a  league 
to  enforce  peace  will  not  be  worth  the  paper 
on  which  it  is  written.  Therefore  the  creation 
of  any  such  league  for  the  future  will  simply 
mean  a  pledge  by  the  present  Allies  to  make 
their  alliance  perpetual,  and  all  to  go  to  war 
again  whenever  one  of  them  is  attacked. 
This  may  become  necessary,  but  it  certainly 
does  not  imply  future  disarmament.  And  if 
the  administration  really  means  loyal  adherence 
to  a  league  of  nations,  or  a  league  to  enforce 
peace  in  the  future,  it  must  at  once  confess 
and  atone  for  its  shameful  betrayal  of  the  exist- 
ing league  of  Allies  by  its  failure  to  declare 
war  on  Turkey  and  Bulgaria. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  United  States  must 
come  into  court  with  clean  hands.  She  must 
not  pledge  herself  without  reservation  to  the 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  69 

right  of  "self-determination"  for  each  people 
while  she  has  behaved  toward  Haiti  and  San 
Domingo  as  she  is  now  behaving.  It  is  not 
possible  for  me  to  say  whether  our  action  in 
these  two  cases  has  been  right  or  wrong,  be- 
cause the  administration,  with  its  usual  horror 
of  publicity,  whether  pitiless  or  otherwise, 
and  its  inveterate  predilection  for  secret  and 
furtive  diplomacy,  has  kept  most  of  the  facts 
hidden.  I  believe  that  there  was  no  possible 
excuse  for  such  secret  diplomacy  in  these  cases 
and  that  the  same  course  should  have  been 
followed  as  was  followed  in  the  case  of  the 
Panama  Revolution,  where  every  fact  was  im- 
mediately laid  without  reservation  before  Con- 
gress (and  where,  incidentally,  what  this  coun- 
try did  was  merely  to  give  Panama  the  "right 
of  self-determination"  of  which  we  have  robbed 
Haiti  and  San  Domingo).  But  even  if  I  am 
wrong  in  my  belief  in  the  general  principle 
of  open  diplomacy,  and  even  if  the  adminis- 
tration is  right  in  its  consistent  policy  of  secret 
diplomacy  as  regards  the  mass  of  questions 
which  I  think  ought  to  be  made  pubhc,  the 
fact  remains  that  we  have  with  armed  force 
invaded,  made  war  upon,  and  conquered  the 


70        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

two  small  republics,  have  upset  their  govern- 
ments, have  denied  them  the  right  of  self-de- 
termination, and  have  made  democracy  within 
their  limits  not  merely  unsafe  but  non-existent. 
As  we  have  no  published  facts  to  go  on,  I  can- 
not say  whether  their  misconduct  did  or  did 
not  warrant  such  drastic  action  on  our  part. 
But  on  the  assumption  that  the  administration 
acted  properly,  we  are  committed  to  the  prin- 
ciple that  some  nations  are  not  fit  for  self- 
determination,  that  democracy  within  their 
limits  is  a  sham,  and  that  their  offenses  against 
justice  and  right  are  such  as  to  render  inter- 
ference by  their  more  powerful  and  more  civil- 
ized neighbors  imperative.  I  do  not  doubt 
that  this  principle  is  true  in  some  cases,  whether 
or  not  it  ought  to  be  applied  in  these  two  par- 
ticular cases.  In  any  event  our  continuing 
action  in  San  Domingo  and  Haiti  makes  it 
hypocritical  for  us  to  lay  down  any  universal 
rules  about  self-determination  for  all  nations. 
Moreover,  our  destruction  of  democracy  in 
these  two  little  republics,  whether  justifiable 
or  not,  makes  it  hypocritical  of  the  adminis- 
tration to  profess  that  it  purposes  to  "make 
democracy  safe"  throughout  the  world. 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  71 

Our  action  also  shows  how  utterly  futile  it 
would  be  to  try  to  treat  a  league  to  enforce 
peace  as  a  substitute  for  training  our  own 
strength  for  our  own  defense.  Let  China  be 
the  witness  of  the  truth  of  this  statement. 
China  has  actually  realized  the  ideal  of  the 
pacifists  who  insist  that  unpreparedness  for 
war  secures  peace.  The  ideal  of  the  interna- 
tionaUsts  is  that  patriotism  and  the  sense  of 
nationalism  are  detrimental  to  humanity,  and 
the  ideal  of  the  socialists  is  that  the  capitalist 
regime  is  the  only  cause  of  popular  misery.  ■ 
China  is  helpless  to  attack  others  or  defend 
herself,  her  people  have  little  sense  of  national 
unity  and  pride,  and  there  are  in  China  huge 
districts  where  there  are  no  capitalists,  and 
where  the  misery  of  the  people  is  greater  than 
in  any  country  of  the  Occident.  China's 
helplessness,  instead  of  helping  toward  world 
peace,  has  been  a  positive  encouragement  to 
war  and  violence  among  her  neighbors.  Her 
future  depends  primarily  not  on  herself  but 
on  what  her  neighbors  choose  to  do.  In  spite 
of  her  size  and  her  enormous  population  and 
resources  she  is  helpless  to  do  good  to  others 
because  she  is  powerless  to  prevent  others  from 


72        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

doing  evil  to  her.  Her  agreement  to  a  league 
of  nations  or  to  a  league  to  enforce  peace  would 
be  worthless  because  she  is  unable  to  put 
strength  back  of  justice  either  for  herself  or 
for  any  one  else.  The  pacifists  and  internation- 
alists, if  they  had  their  way,  would  turn  the 
United  States  into  the  China  of  the  Occident. 

Let  us  put  our  trust  neither  in  rhetoric  nor 
hypocrisy,  whether  conscious  or  unconscious. 
Let  us  be  honest  with  ourselves.  Let  us  look 
the  truth  in  the  face.  Let  us  remember  what 
Germany,  Austria,  and  Turkey  have  actually 
done.  Let  us  remember  what  Russia  has  suf- 
fered from  Germany  and  the  worse  than  folly 
with  which  she  has  behaved  to  every  one  else. 
Let  us  remember  what  has  happened  to  China, 
and  what  we  have  made  happen  to  Haiti  and 
San  Domingo.  Then  let  us  trust  for  our  sal- 
vation to  a  sound  and  intense  American  na- 
tionalism. 

The  horse-sense  of  the  matter  is  that  all 
agreements  to  further  the  cause  of  sound  in- 
ternationalism must  be  based  on  recognition 
of  the  fact  that,  as  the  world  is  actually  consti- 
tuted, our  present  prime  need  is  this  sound  and 
intense  American  nationalism.     The  first  essen- 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  73 

tial  of  this  sound  nationalism  is  that  the  nation 
shall  trust  to  its  own  fully  prepared  strength 
for  its  own  defense.  So  far  as  possible,  its 
strength  must  also  be  used  to  secure  justice 
for  others  and  must  never  be  used  to  wrong 
others.  But  unless  we  possess  and  prepare  the 
strength,  we  can  neither  help  ourselves  nor 
others.  Let  us  by  all  means  go  into  any  wise 
league  or  covenant  among  nations  to  abolish 
neutrality  (for  of  course  a  league  to  enforce 
peace  is  merely  another  name  for  a  league  to 
abolish  neutrality  in  every  possible  war).  But 
let  us  first  understand  what  we  are  promising, 
and  count  the  cost  and  determine  to  keep  our 
promises.  Above  all,  let  us  treat  any  such 
agreement  or  covenant  as  a  mere  addition  or 
supplement  to  and  never  as  a  substitute  for 
the  preparation  in  advance  of  our  own  armed 
power.  Next  time  that  we  behave  with  the 
ignoble  folly  we  have  shown  during  the  last 
four  years  we  may  not  find  allies  to  do  what 
France  and  England  and  Italy  have  done  for 
us.  They  have  protected  us  with  their  navies 
and  armies,  their  blood  and  their  treasure, 
while  we  first  refused  to  do  anything  and  then 
slowly  and   reluctantly   began   to   harden   and 


74        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

make  ready  our  giant  but  soft  and  lazy- 
strength. 

No  paper  scheme  designed  to  secure  peace 
without  effort  and  safety  without  service  and 
sacrifice  will  either  make  this  country  safe  or 
enable  it  to  do  its  international  duty  toward 
others. 

An  American  citizen,  personally  unknown  to 
me,  writes  me  that  his  three  sons  entered  the 
army  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  and  that 
one  of  them,  an  aviator,  was  killed  in  battle  at 
the  front  just  two  weeks  before  my  own  son 
was  killed  as  he  fought  in  the  air.  In  his 
letter  my  correspondent  adds: 

Would  that  my  country  might  learn  and  never 
forget  that  not  only  the  winning  of  peace  now,  but 
the  maintenance  of  peace  at  all  times  depends  not 
fundamentally  on  treaties  or  leagues  of  nations, 
but  on  the  readiness  of  citizens  to  fly  to  the  aid  of 
the  wronged  and  to  give  their  lives  if  need  be  that 
justice  may  be  secured. 

There  speaks  the  true  American  spirit  which 
holds  fast  alike  to  fearlessness  and  to  wisdom, 
to  gentleness  and  to  iron  resolution.  There 
speaks  the  spirit  of  that  fervent  nationalism 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  75 

which  would  forbid  America  either  to  inflict 
or  to  endure  wrong. 

The  cult  of  absolute  internationahsm  as  a 
substitute  for  nationalism  is  the  cult  of  a  doc- 
trine of  fatal  sterility.  It  had  much  vogue 
up  to  the  beginning  of  this  war  among  the 
professional  "intellectuals,"  especially  among 
bright,  clever  young  college  men  of  superficial 
cultivation.  It  was  of  real  damage  to  these, 
and  therefore  it,  to  a  certain  extent,  damaged 
the  country;  for  it  inevitably  emasculates  its 
sincere  votaries,  and  therefore  deprives  their 
country  of  whatever  aid  they  could  otherwise 
give  in  the  eff"ort  to  build  a  vigorous  civiliza- 
tion, based,  as  every  civilization  worth  calling 
such  must  be,  on  a  spirit  of  intense  national- 
ism. 

The  damage  done,  because  of  the  way  such 
sham  internationalism  destroys  the  creative 
fibre  of  the  intellectuals,  is  chiefly  of  negative 
character.  It  deprives  the  nation  of  a  growth- 
force  which  ought  to  be  a  valuable  asset.  But 
it  works  in  positively  mischievous  fashion 
among  the  powerful  sinister  men  who  are  not 
sincere  devotees  of  the  cult,  but  who  use  it  as 
a  cloak  behind  which  they  war  on  all  civiHza- 


76        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

tion,  or  else  deliberately  adopt  a  pretense  of 
belief  in  it  in  order  to  weaken  other  nations 
and  make  them  an  easier  prey.  The  Russian 
Bolshevists  embody  the  first  of  these  attitudes. 
The  German  Socialists  embody  the  second. 
In  the  United  States  the  I.  W.  W.  and  all 
anarchists  of  that  stamp  take  essentially  the 
position  of  the  Russian  Bolshevists;  while  the 
American  Socialist  party,  which  is  a  mere 
annex  of  Germany,  follows  the  lead  of  the 
German  Socialists. 

There  are  a  few  high-minded  Socialists  in 
America  who  have  refused  to  bow  the  knee  to 
Baal,  who  denounce  the  German  Socialists,  and 
uphold  the  great  war  for  human  freedom 
against  Germany.  But  they  are  very,  very 
few.  They  have  been  contemptuously  thrust 
aside  by  the  SociaUst  party  organization.  Un- 
der the  actual  conditions  their  continued  asser- 
tion of  their  belief  in  "internationalism"  has  a 
merely  pathetic  significance. 

The  great  majority  of  the  Socialist,  Bolshe- 
vist, and  other  big  organizations  which  before 
the  war  had  most  loudly  declared  their  alle- 
giance to  "internationalism,"  have  during  the 
last  four  years  sinned  against  international  fair 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  ^^ 

dealing  and  justice  more  heavily  than  any- 
other  groups  of  men  in  the  world,  save  only 
the  Prussianized  people  of  Germany  and  the 
rulers  of  Turkey.  If  sound  internationalism 
means  anything  it  means  insisting  upon  justice 
between  nations  and  condemning  wrong  done 
by  one  nation  to  another.  But  the  German 
SociaHsts,  who  had  loudly  preached  "inter- 
nationalism," have  eagerly  supported  the  Ger- 
man autocracy  in  its  course  of  international 
robbery  and  murder,  and  have  cynically  an- 
nounced that  they  only  preached  pacifism  to 
other  nations  in  order  to  make  them  the  easier 
victims  of  German  militarism;  the  Socialist 
David  announcing  in  the  Reichstag:  "Ger- 
many must  squeeze  her  enemies  with  a  pair  of 
pinchers,  the  military  pincher  and  the  pacifist 
pincher.  The  German  armies  must  continue  to 
fight  vigorously  while  the  German  Socialists 
encourage  and  stimulate  pacifism  among  Ger- 
many's enemies."  This  was  the  real  result  of 
professional  internationalism  in  German}^ — a 
resolute  attempt  to  convert  all  free  nations  into 
the  vassals  of  Germany.  Meanwhile,  in  Amer- 
ica, in  France,  in  England,  and  in  Italy,  either 
the  majority  or  else  a  large  minority  of  the 


78         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

avowed  "international"  Socialists,  were  put- 
ting a  premium  on  Germany's  crimes  against 
international  justice  by  refusing  to  condemn 
them,  by  clamoring  against  war  with  Germany, 
and  by  clamoring  for  a  peace  which  would 
leave  Germany  unpunished.  Then  in  Russia 
the  extreme  professional  internationalists,  the 
Bolshevists,  got  control.  They  instantly  be- 
trayed the  cause  of  international  right  and  jus- 
tice, behaving  with  a  venal  contempt  of  decency 
which  makes  the  Holy  Alliance  of  the  sovereigns 
who  overthrew  Napoleon  seem  respectable  by 
comparison.  They  greedily  sold  themselves 
and  their  country  for  German  gold,  they  aided 
the  German  propaganda,  they  deserted  their 
allies,  the  free  nations,  they  tore  Russia  in 
pieces,  they  butchered  their  fellow  countrymen 
by  tens  of  thousands.  They  have  done  all  in 
their  power  to  fasten  the  German  yoke  on  the 
whole  world,  and  they  have  done  it  in  the 
name  of  "internationalism" ! 

This  is  what  happened  in  actual  practice  as 
soon  as  the  "international"  parties  began  to 
apply  the  "internationalism"  they  had  so 
vehemently  preached.  The  visionaries  and  en- 
thusiasts   among   the   internationalist    leaders 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  79 

have  been  merely  the  tools  of  two  sets  of  evil 
beings;  the  brutish  creatures  who  wished  to 
destroy  all  government,  and  especially  all  good 
government,  because  they  are  themselves  fit 
only  for  the  slime  of  the  pit  and  hate  the  light 
and  all  who  dwell  in  the  light;  and  the  astute 
sordid  creatures  who  serve  their  own  self- 
interest  by  serving  Germany,  whether  for 
downright  pay  or  for  other  considerations,  and 
who  find  that  the  easiest  way  to  render  such 
service  is  to  weaken  their  own  countries,  and 
to  debase  civilization,  by  breaking  down  the 
spirit  of  patriotism  and  nationalism  under  pre- 
tense of  supporting  internationalism. 

When  these  are  the  fruits  of  applied  inter- 
nationahsm,  how  is  it  possible  for  any  high- 
minded  man,  of  reasonably  good  mind  and 
reasonably  sound  training,  to  be  misled  by  the 
false  and  diseased  philosophy  which  has  pro- 
duced them  ?  Internationalism  seems  an  allur- 
ing pose  to  many  a  clever  young  college  fellow. 
But  it  is  a  pose  which,  if  persevered  in,  means 
that  the  man  loses  all  power  of  aiding  in  the 
development  of  a  really  vigorous  and  therefore 
a  really  national  civilization. 

Fundamentally,  as  the  world  now  is,  promis- 


8o        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

cuity  in  patriotism  is  as  unwholesome  as  pro- 
miscuity in  domestic  relations.  The  best  world- 
citizen  is  the  man  who  is  first  and  foremost  a 
good  citizen  of  his  own  country.  Within  our 
national  limits  I  distrust  any  man  who  is  as 
fond  of  a  stranger  as  he  is  of  his  own  family; 
and  in  international  matters  I  even  more 
keenly  distrust  the  man  who  cares  for  other 
nations  as  much  as  for  his  own.  I  do  not  trust 
persons  whose  affections  are  so  diffuse.  There 
are  men  who  look  upon  their  wives  or  mothers 
or  countries  and  upon  other  women  and  other 
countries  with  the  same  tepid  equality  of  emo- 
tion. I  do  not  regard  these  men  as  noble  or 
broad-minded.     I  regard  them  as  rotten. 

This  great  war  has  offered  the  supreme  test  of 
the  only  kind  of  internationahsm  worth  talk- 
ing about,  the  sound  internationalism  which 
implies  power  and  courage  and  disinterested 
wilHngness  to  sacrifice  much  in  order  to  put 
down  international  wrong  and  estabhsh  inter- 
national right.  When  the  emergenc}^  test  was 
thus  applied  the  professional  internationalists 
showed  themselves  a  sorry  crew.  The  really 
powerful  men  of  intrigue  and  action  who  pro- 
fessed adherence  to  the  doctrine  have  been  the 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  8i 

efficient  and  evil  tools  of  German  autocracy, 
militarism,  and  international  tyranny.  The 
milk-and-water  intellectuals  who  prattled  about 
the  doctrine  have  been  the  timid  and  inefficient 
tools  of  the  same  foul  masters. 

The  great  war  for  international  right  and 
justice  has  been  carried  on  by  the  men  who 
were  nationalists  first,  patriots  first,  French- 
men or  Englishmen  or  ItaHans  or  Americans 
first;  and  who  were  able  to  serve  humanity  at 
large  precisely  because  they  possessed  the  soul 
qualities  which  made  them  proudly  devoted  to 
their  own  nations,  and  proud  to  fight  for  their 
devotion.  At  this  moment  the  menace  of  a 
peace  which  will  consecrate  German  wrong- 
doing comes  mainly  from  men  who  profess  a 
wordy  internationalism.  It  is  the  sound  na- 
tionalists, the  ardent  patriots  of  the  United 
States  and  of  the  free  countries  of  western 
Europe,  who  are  too  proud  not  to  fight  to  the 
end  for  Belgium  and  Servia  and  all  the  small 
well-behaved  nations  who  are  primarily  threat- 
ened by  the  German  horror. 

The  cultivated  American,  the  college-bred 
American,  the  American  intellectual  who  pro- 
fesses the  creed  of  internationalism  has  turned 


82        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

down  the  path  that  leads  to  moral  emascula- 
tion. He  has  given  adhesion  to  those  half- 
truths  that  are  the  most  destructive  of  false- 
hoods; and  these  half-truths  eat  out  the  moral 
fibre  of  mankind  as  plague-germs  eat  out  the 
healthy  tissue  of  the  physical  body.  He  prac- 
tises a  philosophy  dear  to  those  who  think  idly, 
dear  to  those  who  live  vapidly,  dear  to  those 
whose  hearts  are  both  cold  and  feeble. 

Let  us  remember  this  when  the  peace  comes. 
Don't  trust  the  pacifists;  they  are  the  enemies 
of  righteousness.  Don't  trust  the  professional 
internationalists;  they  are  the  enemies  of  na- 
tionalism and  Americanism.  Both  of  these 
groups  appeal  to  all  weaklings,  illusionists, 
materialists,  lukewarm  Americans,  and  fad- 
dists of  all  the  types  that  vitiate  sound  na- 
tionaHsm.  Their  leaders  are  plausible  make- 
believe  humanitarians,  who  crave  a  notoriety 
that  flatters  their  own  egotism,  who  often 
mislead  amiable  and  well-meaning  but  short- 
sighted persons,  who  care  for  their  own  worth- 
less carcasses  too  much  to  go  anywhere  near 
the  front  when  fighting  comes,  but  who  in  times 
of  inert  and  slothful  thinking,  when  war  seems 
a  remote  possibility,   can  gain   reputation   by 


Nationalism,  internationalism  83 

windy  schemes  which  imply  not  the  smallest 
self-sacrifice  or  service  among  those  who  ad- 
vocate them,  and  which  therefore  appeal  to 
all  exponents  of  intellectual  vagary,  senti- 
mental instabiHty  and  eccentricity,  and  that 
sham  altruism  which  seeks  the  cheap  glory  of 
words  that  betray  deeds.  All  these  elements 
combined  may,  when  the  people  as  a  whole 
are  not  fully  awake,  betray  this  country  into 
a  course  of  folly  for  which  when  the  hour  of 
stern  trial  comes  our  bravest  men  will  pay  with 
blood  and  our  bravest  women  with  tears.  For 
these  illusionists  do  not  pay  with  their  own 
bodies  for  the  dreadful  errors  into  which  they 
have  led  a  nation.  They  strut  through  their 
time  of  triumph  in  the  hours  of  ease,  and  when 
the  hours  of  trial  come  they  scatter  instantly 
and  let  the  nationalists,  the  old-fashioned  pa- 
triots, the  men  and  women  who  believe  in  the 
virile  fighting  virtues,  accept  the  burden  and 
carry  the  load,  meet  the  dangers  and  make 
the  sacrifices,  and  give  themselves  to  and  for 
the  country.  Nations  are  made,  defended,  and 
preserved,  not  by  the  illusionists,  but  by  the 
men  and  women  who  practise  the  homely  vir- 
tues in  time  of  peace,  and  who  in  time  of  right- 


84         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

eous  war  are  ready  to  die,  or  to  send  those  they 
love  best  to  die,  for  a  shining  ideal. 

This  war,  into  which  we  helplessly  drifted 
without  preparation,  and  in  which  for  the  first 
year  and  a  quarter  we  did  so  lamentably  ill, 
nevertheless  may  mean  the  moral  salvation  of 
our  people.  It  has  lifted  us  out  of  the  stew  of 
sordid  materialism,  flavored  with  sham  senti- 
mentality. It  has  brought  us  face  to  face  with 
the  eternal  verities  which  were  manfully  faced 
by  our  fathers  in  the  days  of  Lincoln,  by  our 
forefathers  in  the  days  of  Washington.  It  has 
taught  us  again  to  realize  the  worth  of  the 
great  basic  virtues,  the  fundamental  virtues  of 
manhood  and  womanhood,  which  enabled 
Washington  and  Lincoln  and  the  men  of  Valley 
Forge  and  the  men  of  Gettysburg  to  build  and 
to  maintain  this  republic  as  the  hope  of  the 
free  nations  of  mankind.  Those  men  were 
not  internationalists.  They  were  Americans. 
That  is  why  we  are  proud  to  be  their  fellow 
countrymen.  That  is  why  they  have  been  an 
inspiration  to  the  best  men  of  all  other  nations. 

There  is  no  limit  to  the  greatness  of  the 
future  before  America,  before  our  beloved  land. 
But  we  can  realize  it  only  if  we  are  Americans, 


NATIONALISM,  INTERNATIONALISM  85 

if  we  are  nationalists,  with  all  the  fervor  of  our 
hearts  and  all  the  wisdom  of  our  brains.  We 
can  serve  the  world  at  all  only  if  we  serve 
America  first  and  best.  We  must  work  along 
our  own  national  lines  in  every  field  of  achieve- 
ment. We  must  feel  in  the  very  marrow  of 
our  being  that  our  loyalty  is  due  only  to  Amer- 
ica, and  that  it  is  not  diluted  by  loyalty  for 
any  other  nation  or  all  other  nations  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  Only  thus  shall  we  fit  our- 
selves really  to  serve  other  nations,  to  refuse 
ourselves  to  wrong  them,  and  to  refuse  to  let 
them  do  wrong  or  suffer  wrong. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  GERMAN  HORROR 

\ 

THE  Germans  have  themselves  coined 
the  words  by  which  to  describe  and 
denounce  their  conduct  in  this  war. 
These  are  the  words  SchreckHchkeit  and  Kul- 
tur.  They  use  the  word  SchreckHchkeit  ac- 
curately in  telHng  of  their  deeds.  Its  Hteral 
translation  is  Horror.  Kultur  as  used  by  them 
has  become  a  term  of  derision  for  the  outside 
world.  It  can  be  translated  as  culture  only 
in  a  pathological  sense.  German  "Kultur"  is 
precisely  analogous  to  a  "culture"  of  cholera- 
germs. 

It  sounds  well,  for  the  moment,  to  say  that 
we  war  against  the  German  Government  but 
love  the  German  people.  Yet  the  antithesis 
thus  drawn  is  misleading,  and  the  effect  of 
the  statement  is  mischievous.  It  plays  into 
the  hands  of  the  pro-Germans  and  pacifists, 
who  at  once  ask:  "Then  why  fight  people  we 
love?"    Such  a  question  is  difficult  to  answer; 

86 


THE  GERMAN  HORROR  87 

and  inasmuch  as  our  going  to  war  can  be  justi- 
fied only — although  amply — by  admitting  that 
we  ought  to  have  gone  to  war  two  years  pre- 
viously, it  is  unwise  to  furnish  further  ammuni- 
tion to  the  foolish  or  sinister  creatures  who 
seek  to  embarrass  the  government  by  asking 
why  we  now  make  war  for  causes  which  during 
two  years  and  a  half  we  were  told  did  not  justify 
war. 

Moreover,  the  statement,  in  addition  to 
being  unwise,  is  untrue.  There  is  no  such  dif- 
ference between  the  German  Government  and 
the  German  people  as  is  implied.  Unques- 
tionably the  hideous  wrong-doing  of  the  Ger- 
man Government  to-day  would  have  struck 
with  horror  and  amazement  the  German  people 
of  fifty  years  ago — still  more  the  men  of  '48, 
who  had  faith  in  the  vision  of  justice  and  mercy. 
But  the  scientific,  efficient,  and  utterly  ruthless 
and  conscienceless  administration  which  Prus- 
sia under  the  Hohenzollerns  has  imposed  on 
all  Germany  during  the  last  half-century  has 
completely  debauched  the  German  people. 

We  must  remember  that  serfage  did  not  come 
to  an  end  in  Germany  until  as  a  sequel  to  the 
wars  of  Napoleon.     The  constitution  of  Prus- 


88         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

sian  society  is  aristocratic,  capitalistic,  and  mili- 
taristic to  the  core,  and  the  guiding  and  ruling 
minority  of  this  society  has  for  a  couple  of  cen- 
turies been  saturated  with  the  spirit  of  cynical 
and  faithless  brutality.  It  was  this  ruling 
minority  which,  after  using  for  its  own  end 
the  Tugendbund,  and  the  self-sacrificing 
ideaHsm  of  the  German  popular  revolt  against 
Napoleon,  instantly  betrayed  its  liberty-loving 
supporters  when  once  Napoleon  was  over- 
thrown. 

Unfortunately  for  Germany,  of  the  German 
leaders  of  the  mid-nineteenth  century  those 
who  were  liberal  were  pacifist  and  impractical, 
and  they  could  not  make  headway  against  the 
selfish  and  brutal  but  severely  practical  genius 
of  the  men  who  followed  Bismarck.  The  very 
docility  of  the  German  masses,  long  accustomed 
to  being  ruled,  made  them  easy  victims  of  the 
domineering,  materialistic,  hard-headed  and 
coarse-tempered  upper  classes  who  rose  to 
the  surface  as  Germany  became  Prussianized. 
The  autocracy  was  victorious  at  home  and 
abroad;  its  rule  was  ruinous  to  the  souls  of 
the  people,  but  it  shrewdly  took  care  of  their 
bodies;    and   it  completely  subdued   them  to 


THE  GERMAN  HORROR  89 

its  will.  By  degrees  the  intellectuals  became 
as  repulsively  indifferent  to  all  morality  that 
was  not  strictly  tribal  as  the  militarists  them- 
selves;   and  the  masses  blindly  followed  suit. 

The  attitude  of  the  professors  and  literary 
men  in  this  war  has  been  as  abhorrent,  as  ut- 
terly vile,  as  that  of  the  brutes  in  uniform  who 
have  planned  and  carried  out  the  wholesale 
murders,  the  obscene  and  loathsome  cruelties 
and  devastations,  the  huge  slave-raids,  and  the 
carnivals  of  destruction  in  the  conquered  lands. 
The  bombing  of  American  hospitals  and  sub- 
marining of  Canadian  hospital-ships  are  merely 
minor  instances  of  what  has  been  done.  And 
the  people  as  a  whole  have  applauded  the  in- 
famies committed  and  have  enthusiastically 
supported  the  authors  of  these  infamies. 

In  nations  as  in  men  there  is  apt  to  be  a 
mixture  of  the  Dr.  Jekyll  and  the  Mr.  Hyde; 
and  able  leaders,  according  to  the  degree  in 
which  conscience  and  wisdom  guide  their  ability, 
bring  to  the  fore  one  or  the  other  type  of  na- 
tional characteristic.  For  half  a  century  in 
Germany  as  a  whole,  and  for  a  much  longer 
time  in  Prussia,  the  effective  national  leader- 
ship has  been  such  as  to  develop  efficiency  on 


90        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

a  basis  as  fundamentally  immoral,  both  from 
the  international  and  the  democratic  stand- 
points, as  that  of  ancient  Assyria  herself.  The 
conscience  of  the  German  people  has  been 
thoroughly  debauched.  In  consequence  the 
German  people  now  stand  behind  their  govern- 
ment and  heartily  support  it  in  every  infamy 
it  commits.  The  greatest  good  fortune  that 
could  befall  the  German  people  would  be  the 
crushing  defeat  of  Germany.  Until  such  a 
defeat  occurs  we  can  only  say  that,  unless  the 
German  people  separate  themselves  from  and 
condemn  and  repudiate,  instead  of  upholding, 
the  German  Government,  all  right-minded  and 
courageous  men  must  include  them  in  a  com- 
mon condemnation. 

Many  of  our  politicians  are  pavidly  fearful 
of  admitting  this  obvious  fact  lest  they  offend 
the  "German  vote."  Political  expediency  is 
right  enough  in  its  place;  but  not  when  it  con- 
flicts with  vital  national  interest.  Our  people 
are  not  to  be  excused  if  they  fail  now  to  insist 
that  the  day  for  temporizing  with  avowedly 
foreign  "votes"  has  passed.  We  have  in  this 
country  room  only  for  thoroughgoing  Amer- 
icans.    We  care  not  where  the  man's  parents 


THE  GERMAN  HORROR  91 

are  from  or  where  he  himself  was  born,  or  what 
religion  he  professes,  so  long  as  he  is  in  good 
faith  and  without  reservation  an  American  and 
nothing  else.  But  if  he  tries  to  be  half  Amer- 
ican and  half  something  else,  it  is  proof  positive 
that  he  isn't  an  American  at  all  and  the  sooner 
he  gets  out  of  the  country  the  better.  Some 
of  the  German-American  papers  who  fear 
to  commit  treason  by  openly  championing 
"Deutschland,"  Germany,  now  try  to  com- 
promise by  preaching  devotion  to  "Deutsch- 
tum,"  that  is,  Germanism.  This  really  rep- 
resents no  improvement.  Germanism  here  at 
home  is  the  foe  of  Americanism  and  those 
who  believe  in  it  should  go  back  to  Germany, 
where  they  belong.  Germanism  abroad  is  the 
foe  not  only  of  America  but  of  all  free  and  self- 
respecting  nations.  The  hideous  iniquities 
committed  by  Germany  during  the  present 
war  have  been  deliberately  ordered  by  the 
German  Government  as  part  of  its  deliberate 
campaign  of  "Schrecklichkeit, "  of  horror. 
They  are  not  sporadic,  they  are  systematic. 
Because  of  them  Germany  has  earned  the  loath- 
ing felt  only  for  criminals  of  utterly  debased 
type.     Vernon  Kellogg,  an  eye-witness,  in  an 


92        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

Atlantic  Monthly  article,  has  shown  that  the 
German  people  stand  behind  their  government 
and  share  its  dreadful  guilt. 


CHAPTER  VII 
SERVICE  AND  SELF-RESPECT 

UNLESS  democracy  is  based  on  the 
principle  of  service  by  everybody  who 
claims  the  enjoyment  of  any  right,  it 
is  not  true  democracy  at  all.  The  man  who 
refuses  to  render,  or  is  ashamed  to  render,  the 
necessary  service  is  not  fit  to  live  in  a  democ- 
racy. And  the  man  who  demands  from  an- 
other a  service  which  he  himself  would  esteem 
it  dishonorable  or  unbecoming  to  render  is  to 
that  extent  not  a  true  democrat.  No  man 
has  a  right  to  demand  a  service  which  he  does 
not  regard  as  honorable  to  render;  nor  has 
he  a  right  to  demand  it  unless  he  pays  for  it 
in  some  way,  the  payment  to  include  respect  for 
the  man  who  renders  it.  Democracy  must  mean 
mutuality  of  service  rendered,  and  of  respect 
for  the  service  rendered. 

A  leading  Russian  revolutionist  (who  is,  of 
course,  like  every  true  friend  of  freedom,  an 
opponent  of  the  Bolsheviki)  recently  came  to 

93 


94         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

this  country  from  Vladivostock.  He  traversed 
the  Siberian  railway.  The  porter  on  his  train 
refused  to  get  him  hot  water  or  to  black  his 
boots;  stating  with  true  Bolshevistic  logic  that 
democracy  meant  that  nobody  must  do  any- 
thing for  any  one  else  and  that  anyhow  his 
union  would  turn  him  out  if  he  rendered  such 
service. 

Now,  this  Bolsheviki  porter  was  foolish 
with  a  folly  that  can  only  be  induced  by  pro- 
longed and  excessive  indulgence  in  Bolshe- 
vism or  some  American  analogue.  But  the 
root  trouble  in  producing  his  folly  was  the 
fact  that  under  the  old  system  the  men  ^hose 
boots  the  porter  blacked  looked  down  on  him 
for  blacking  them.  Are  we  entirely  free  from 
this  attitude  in  America  ?  Until  we  are  we 
may  as  well  make  up  our  minds  that  to  just 
that  extent  we  are  providing  for  the  growth 
of  Bolshevism  here.  No  man  has  a  right 
to  ask  or  accept  any  service  unless  under 
changed  conditions  he  would  feel  that  he  could 
keep  his  entire  self-respect  while  rendering  it. 
Service  which  carries  with  it  the  slightest  im- 
plication of  social  abasement  should  not  be 
rendered. 


SERVICE  AND  SELF-RESPECT     95 

For  a  number  of  years  I  lived  on  a  ranch 
in  the  old-time  cattle  country;  and  I  also 
visited  at  the  house  of  a  backwoods  lumber- 
jack friend.  In  both  places  we  lived  under 
old-style  American  conditions.  We  all  of  us 
worked,  and  our  social  distinctions  were  es- 
sentially based  on  individual  worth.  We  ac- 
cepted as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  difference 
in  degree  of  service  rendered  ought  at  least 
roughly  to  correspond  to  the  difference  in  re- 
ward. Each  did  most  of  the  purely  personal 
things  for  himself.  But  nobody  thought  of 
any  necessary  work  as  degrading. 

I  remember  that  once,  when  there  was  a 
lull  in  outdoor  work,  I  endeavored  to  be  useful 
in  and  around  the  house.  I  fed  the  pigs;  and 
on  an  idle  morning  I  blacked  all  the  boots. 
Ordinarily  our  boots  did  not  need  blacking — 
most  of  them  were  not  that  kind.  On  this 
occasion  I  started,  with  an  enthusiasm  that 
outran  my  judgment,  to  black  the  dress  boots 
of  every  one,  of  both  sexes.  I  coated  them 
with  a  thick,  dull  paste;  only  a  few  knobs  be- 
came shiny;  and  the  paste  came  off  freely  on 
what  it  touched.  As  a  result  I  temporarily 
lost  not  merely  the  respect  but  even  the  affec- 


96         THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

tion  of  all  the  other  inmates  of  the  house. 
However,  I  did  not  lose  caste  because  I  had 
blacked  the  boots.  I  lost  caste  because  I  had 
blacked  them  badly.  But  I  was  allowed  to 
continue  feeding  the  pigs.  The  pigs  were  not 
so  particular  as  the  humans. 

Now,  there  is  no  more  reason  for  refusing 
to  bring  hot  water  or  black  boots  or  serve  a 
dinner  or  make  up  a  bed  or  cook  or  wash  clothes 
(I  have  cooked  and  washed  clothes  often — but 
neither  wisely  nor  well)  than  for  refusing  to 
shoe  a  horse,  run  a  motor,  brake  a  train,  sell 
carpets,  manage  a  bank,  or  run  a  farm.  A  few 
centuries  back  men  of  good  lineage  felt  that 
they  lost  caste  if  they  were  in  trade  or  finance — 
in  some  countries  they  feel  so  to  this  day.  In 
most  civilized  lands,  however,  the  feeling  has 
disappeared,  and  it  never  occurs  to  any  one 
to  look  down  on  any  one  else  because  he  sells 
things.  Just  the  same  feeling  should  obtain, 
and  as  we  grow  more  civilized  will  obtain,  about 
all  other  kinds  of  service.  This  applies  to  do- 
mestic service.  It  is  as  entirely  right  to  em- 
ploy housemaids,  cooks,  and  gardeners  as  to 
employ  lawyers,  bankers,  and  business  men 
or  cashiers,  factory-hands,  and  stenographers. 


SERVICE  AND  SELF-RESPECT    97 

But  only  on  condition  that  we  show  the  same 
respect  to  the  individuals  in  one  case  as  in 
the  other  cases ! 

Ultimately  I  hope  that  this  respect  will  show 
itself  in  the  forms  of  address,  in  the  courtesy 
titles  used,  as  well  as  the  consideration  shown, 
and  the  personal  liberty  expected  and  accorded. 
I  am  not  demanding  an  instant  change — I  be- 
heve  in  evolution  rather  than  revolution.  But 
I  am  sure  the  change  is  possible  and  desirable; 
and  even  although  it  would  be  foolish  and 
undesirable  to  set  up  the  entirely  new  standard 
immediately,  I  hope  we  can  work  toward  it. 
One  of  the  most  charming  gentlewomen  I  know, 
the  wife  of  a  man  of  rare  cultivation,  ability, 
and  public  achievement,  lives  on  the  top  floor 
of  a  tenement-house  in  a  Western  city.  The 
rooms  are  comfortably  and  daintily  furnished — 
with  an  abundance  of  books.  In  this  household 
the  maid  was  introduced  to  me  as  Miss  So- 
and-So;  and  this  is  the  ideal.  Of  course  it 
cannot  be  reahzed  until  there  has  been  much 
education  on  both  sides.  But  it  should  be  the 
ideal.  All  relations  between  employer  and 
employee  should  be  based  on  mutuahty  of 
respect  and  consideration;    arrogance  met  by 


98        THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

insolence,  or  an  alternation  of  arrogance  and 
insolence,  offers  but  a  poor  substitute. 

Mutuality  of  respect  and  consideration,  ser- 
vice and  a  reward  corresponding  as  nearly  as 
may  be  to  the  service — these  make  up  the  ideal 
of  democracy.  Such  an  ideal  is  as  far  from  the 
stupid  bourbonism  of  reaction  as  it  is  from  the 
vicious  lunacy  of  the  Bolsheviki  or  I.  W.  W. 
type.  Perhaps  the  beginning  of  its  realiza- 
tion may  come  through  the  introduction  of 
universal  military  training.  Some  months  ago 
I  went  through  the  National  Army,  or  drafted 
men's,  camp  at  Chillicothe,  Ohio.  There  were 
some  thirty  thousand  men  in  the  camp — Amer- 
icans of  fine  type,  who  were  having  the  finest 
kind  of  education,  for  these  camps  are  the 
true  universities  of  American  citizenship.  An 
exceptionally  efficient  and  far-seeing  army 
officer,  Major-General  Glenn,  was  in  command. 
He  kept  admirable  discipline,  he  tolerated  no 
slackness,  no  failure  in  duty  of  any  kind,  and 
by  his  initiative  and  personality  he  was  over- 
coming all  obstacles  and  making  capital  sol- 
diers of  his  men.  He  showed  with  especial 
pride  the  Red  Cross  Community  House.  It 
is  a  huge  building,  very  attractive,  with  a  big 


SERVICE  AND   SELF-RESPECT    99 

restaurant,  reading-rooms,  and  a  dance -hall. 
When  off  duty  officers  and  enlisted  men  come 
there  and  bring  their  friends  of  both  sexes, 
with  absolutely  no  restriction  save,  as  Gen- 
eral Glenn  put  it,  that  "every  man  is  to  act 
as  a  gentleman  and  every  woman  as  a  gentle- 
woman." (When  we  have  universal  service, 
and  every  man  has  served  in  the  ranks,  and 
representatives  of  every  class  have  commissions, 
there  will  be  merely  the  same  distinction  be- 
tween sergeants  and  lieutenants  as  between 
captains  and  colonels.)  In  the  restaurant  the 
major-general  and  a  private  from  the  ranks 
may — and  sometimes  do — sit  at  the  same 
table.  All  come  alike  to  the  dances.  All 
alike  enjoy  the  privileges  of  the  reading-rooms. 
All  behave  with  self-respect.  Each  respects 
the  others.  When  they  go  back  to  duty  each 
does  his  allotted  task  in  his  allotted  position, 
with  eager  and  zealous  efficiency,  and  with 
alert,  orderly,  and  instant  discipline.  Surely 
this  is  the  military  ideal  for  a  democracy — 
twenty  years  ago  my  own  regiment  realized 
just  this  ideal.  Surely  it  also  represents  sub- 
stantially the  democratic  ideal  toward  which 
we  should  strive  in  civil  life.     It  is  as  far  re- 


loo      THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

moved  from  the  brutal  and  repulsive  folly 
of  Bolshevism  on  the  one  hand  as  from  the 
intolerable  autocratic  tyranny  of  the  Hohen- 
zollern  type  on  the  other. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    ROMANOFF    SCYLLA    AND    THE 
BOLSHEVIST  CHARYBDIS 

FROM  the  days  when  civilized  man  first 
began  to  strive  for  self-government  and 
democracy  success  in  this  effort  has 
depended  primarily  upon  the  ability  to  steer 
clear  of  extremes.  For  almost  its  entire  length 
the  course  Hes  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis; 
and  the  heated  extremists  who  insist  upon 
avoiding  only  one  gulf  of  destruction  invari- 
ably land  in  the  other — and  then  take  refuge 
in  the  meagre  consolation  afforded  by  denounc- 
ing as  "inconsistent"  the  pilot  who  strives  to 
avoid  both.  Throughout  past  history  Liberty 
has  always  walked  between  the  twin  terrors 
of  Tyranny  and  Anarchy.  They  have  stalked 
like  wolves  beside  her,  with  murder  in  their 
red  eyes,  ever  ready  to  tear  each  other's 
throats,  but  even  more  ready  to  rend  in  sunder 
Liberty  herself.  Always  in  the  past  there  has 
been  a  monotonously  recurrent  cycle  in  the 

lOI 

LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


I02       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

history  of  free  states;  Liberty  has  supplanted 
Tyranny,  has  gradually  been  supplanted  by 
Anarchy,  and  has  then  seen  the  insupportable 
Anarchy  finally  overthrown  and  Tyranny  re- 
established. Anarchy  is  always  and  every- 
where the  handmaiden  of  Tyranny  and  Liber- 
ty's deadliest  foe.  No  people  can  permanently 
remain  free  unless  it  possesses  the  stern  self- 
control  and  resolution  necessary  to  put  down 
anarchy.  Order  without  liberty  and  liberty 
without  order  are  equally  destructive;  special 
privilege  for  the  few  and  special  privilege  for 
the  many  are  alike  profoundly  anti-social; 
the  fact  that  unlimited  individualism  is  ruin- 
ous, in  no  way  alters  the  fact  that  absolute 
state  ownership  and  regimentation  spells  ruin 
of  a  different  kind.  All  of  this  ought  to  be 
trite  to  reasonably  intelligent  people — even  if 
they  are  professional  intellectuals — but  in 
practice  an  endless  insistence  on  these  simple 
fundamental  truths  is  endlessly  necessary. 

Before  our  eyes  the  unfortunate  Russian 
nation  furnishes  an  example  on  a  gigantic 
scale  of  what  to  avoid  in  oscillating  between 
extremes.  The  autocratic  and  bureaucratic 
despotism  of  the  Romanoffs  combined  extreme 


•       THE  ROMANOFF  SCYLLA        103 

tyranny  with  extreme  inefficiency;  and  the 
Bolshevists  have  turned  the  revolution  into  a 
veritable  Witches'  Sabbath  of  anarchy,  plunder, 
murder,  utterly  faithless  treachery  and  in- 
efficiency carried  to  the  verge  of  complete  dis- 
integration. Each  side  sought  salvation  by 
formulas  which  were  condemned  alike  by  com- 
mon sense  and  common  morality;  and  even 
these  formulas  were  by  their  actions  belied. 

I  do  not  say  these  things  from  any  desire  to 
speak  ill  of  the  Russian  people.  I  am  far  too 
conscious  of  our  own  smug  shortcoming  during 
the  world  war  to  wish  to  comment  harshly  on 
a  great  people  which  has  suffered  terribly  and 
which  battled  bravely  for  the  three  years  dur- 
ing which  we  as  a  nation  earned  the  curse  of 
Meroz  by  the  complacent  and  greedy  selfish- 
ness with  which  we  refused  to  come  to  the 
help  of  the  Lord  against  the  mighty — while 
our  leaders  with  unctuous  hypocrisy  justified 
our  course  by  deliberate  falsehood  and  by  a 
sham  sentimentahty  which  under  the  circum- 
stances was  nauseous.  Our  astute  profiting 
by  the  valor  of  others  saved  us  from  paying 
the  terrible  penalty  which  Russia  has  paid; 
but  from  the  standpoint  of  national  and  inter- 


I04       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

national  morality  our  ofFense  was  well-nigh 
as  rank  as  Russia's.  Since  the  Bolshevists 
rose  to  power  Russia  has  betrayed  her  own 
honor  and  the  cause  of  world  democracy, 
and  the  liberties  of  well-behaved  minorities 
within  her  own  borders,  and  the  right  to  liberty 
and  self-government  of  small,  well-behaved 
nations  everywhere.  But  for  the  two  years 
after  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  we  continued  to 
fawn  on  the  blood-stained  murderers  of  our 
people,  we  were  false  to  ourselves  and  we  were 
false  to  the  cause  of  right  and  of  liberty  and 
democracy  throughout  the  world.  Had  we 
done  our  duty  when  the  Lusitania  was  sunk, 
instead  of  following  the  advice  of  the  apostles 
of  greedy  and  peaceable  infamy,  the  world 
war  with  its  dreadful  slaughter  would  long 
ago  have  been  over.  Incidentally  Russia  would 
have  been  saved  from  the  abyss  into  which 
she  has  fallen,  for  in  her  inevitable  revolution 
the  Bolshevists  would  not  have  had  the  Ger- 
man support  which  has  enabled  them  to 
wrench  loose  the  very  foundations  of  their 
country.  No  wonder  poor  Kerensky  during 
his  brief  and  perilous  moment  of  leadership 
exclaimed  that  it  was  America's  turn  to  do  the 


THE  ROMANOFF  SCYLLA        105 

fighting  and  endure  the  loss,  for  the  three  years' 
effort  had  strained  Russia  to  the  snapping- 
point. 

Moreover,  we  can  feel  genuine  sympathy 
with  the  immense  mass  of  Russian  peasants, 
who  have  never  been  given  the  chance  to  learn 
self-government  or  to  discriminate  between 
possibilities  and  impossibilities,  and  who  in 
their  ignorance  and  poverty,  their  suffering 
and  bewilderment  must  not  be  too  heavily 
blamed  for  behaving  as,  when  all  is  said,  a 
very  considerable  fraction  of  our  own  people 
were  anxious  to  behave.  And  during  the  last 
year  or  eighteen  months  our  own  government 
has  behaved  toward  Russia  with  such  short- 
sightedness and  infirmity  of  purpose,  such 
failure  to  adopt  either  or  any  of  the  possible 
courses  until  it  was  too  late  to  get  more  than 
a  fraction  of  the  possible  benefit,  that  it  be- 
hooves us  to  be  very  charitable  in  our  estimate 
of  the  Russian  people.  We  did  not  give  the 
Soviet  governments  the  peaceful  economic 
aid  they  asked,  nor  promise  them  military  aid 
against  Germany  when  it  seemed  hkely  that 
they  would  accept  it.  Yet  we  did  not  back 
the  Czecho-Slovaks  by  putting  a  substantial 


io6       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

army  in  Siberia  early  last  spring.  We  ought 
then  to  have  put  at  least  fifty  thousand  of  our 
troops,  under  Leonard  Wood,  into  Siberia;  and 
had  we  done  so  the  battle-front  would  now 
have  been  between  the  Urals  and  Moscow.  But 
our  government  wabbled  and  hesitated,  finally 
sent  a  few  thousand  men,  promised  aid  to  the 
Czecho-Slovaks,  and  then  said  that  after  all 
we  must  not  go  as  far  west  as  the  Urals.  We 
failed  to  put  into  Siberia  a  force  comparable 
in  size,  and  therefore  in  military  efficiency, 
with  the  force  put  in  by  the  Japanese;  and 
we  let  the  Japanese  surpass  us  in  military 
credit  with  the  Siberian  people  and  in  laying 
the  foundiation  for  future  economic  relations 
with  Siberia.  We  incurred  the  bitter  hostility 
of  the  Soviet  leaders;  but  we  rendered  very 
little  real  help  to  any  one.  We  broke  the 
peace;  but  we  only  went  to  war  a  little.  We 
were  neither  wise  and  generous  friends  nor 
just  and  fearless  foes.  We  never  acted  until 
after  the  best  time  for  action  had  passed. 
We  hit;   but  we  hit  softly. 

Some  part  of  the  horror  of  famine  and  dis- 
ease which  now  lies  like  a  nightmare  on  the 
Russian  people  is  due  to  our  own  failure  to 


THE  ROMANOFF  SCYLLA        107 

render  efficient  aid  along  any  line  in  the  past. 
This  horror  will  grow  worse  during  the  winter 
that  is  opening;  and  surely  it  is  our  duty  with 
generous  and  open-handed  wisdom  to  bend 
every  effort  to  sending  help  at  the  earliest  pos- 
sible moment  to  the  starving  Russian  people. 

It  is  absolutely  imperative  for  the  sake  of 
this  nation  that  we  shall  realize  the  lamentable 
calamities  that  have  befallen  Russia  and  shall 
condemn  in  sternest  fashion  the  men  in  our  own 
country  who  would  invite  such  calamities  for 
America.  The  reactionaries,  the  men  whose 
only  idea  is  to  restore  their  power  to  the  bour- 
bons of  wealth  and  politics,  and  obstinately  to 
oppose  all  rational  forward  movements  for  the 
general  betterment,  would,  if  they  had  their 
way,  bring  to  this  country  the  ruin  wrought  by 
the  regime  of  the  Romanoffs  in  Russia.  To 
withstand  the  sane  movement  for  social  and 
industrial  justice  is  enormously  to  increase  the 
likelihood  that  the  movement  will  be  turned 
into  insane  and  sinister  channels.  And  to 
oscillate  between  the  sheer  brutal  greed  of  the 
haves  and  the  sheer  brutal  greed  of  the  have- 
nots  means  to  plumb  the  depths  of  degrada- 
tion.    The  soldiers  who  in  this  war  have  battled 


io8       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

at  the  front  against  autocracy  will  not  sub- 
mit to  the  enthronement  of  privilege  at  home. 
They  believe  in  discipHne  and  leadership,  they 
believe  in  the  superior  reward  going  to  leaders 
like  General  Pershing  and  Admiral  Sims; 
but  they  believe  that  in  time  the  difference  in 
industrial  reward  between  the  good  man  at 
the  top  of  the  management  class  and  the  good 
man  in  the  working  man's  class  ought  roughly 
to  correspond  to  the  difference  in  reward  be- 
tween the  general  and  the  sergeant-major, 
the  admiral  and  the  warrant-officer. 

We  will  not  submit  to  privilege  in  the  form 
of  wealth.  Just  as  little  will  we  submit  to  the 
privilege  of  a  mob.  There  are  no  worse 
enemies  of  America  than  the  American  Bol- 
shevists and  the  crew  of  politicians  who  pander 
to  them.  We  ought  therefore  clearly  to  under- 
stand what  the  Bolsheviki  attempted  in  Russia 
and  what  after  a  year  of  power  they  have  done 
for,  or  rather  to,  Russia.  They  utterly  re- 
pudiated the  idea  of  a  democracy,  where  every 
man  is  guaranteed  his  rights  and  is  limited  in 
his  power  to  do  wrong.  Their  effort  was  to 
create  a  Marxian  socialistic  state,  based  on  the 
class-conscious   purpose  of   the  proletariat  to 


THE   ROMANOFF  SCYLLA        109 

destroy  and  rob  every  other  class.  They  op- 
pressed and  plundered  impartially  all  former 
oppressors  and  wrong-doers  and  all  former 
champions  of  fair  dealing  and  Hberty.  They 
attacked  the  erstwhile  corrupt  bureaucrat 
or  wealthy  landowner  who  had  neglected  all 
his  duties  not  a  whit  more  venomously  than 
they  attacked  the  small  shopkeeper  or  skilled 
mechanic  or  industrious  farmer  or  thrifty 
working  man  whom,  because  he  had  saved  some 
money  and  began  to  live  decently,  they  de- 
nounced as  having  adopted  "bourgeois  stand- 
ards." They  definitely  sought  to  realize  the 
stark  formulas  of  Marxian  socialism;  and  there- 
fore they  have  made  a  genuine  contribution  for 
warning  and  prevention  against  destructive 
adventure  of  a  similar  character  in  our  own 
land.  The  followers  of  Trotzky  and  Lenine, 
like  the  followers  of  Robespierre  and  Marat, 
have  just  one  lesson  to  teach  the  American 
people:  what  to  avoid. 

In  the  peace  treaty  of  last  March  the  Russian 
Bolshevists  and  the  German  autocracy  joined 
against  the  free  nations.  Anarchy  and  des- 
potism joined  against  liberty.  The  representa- 
tives of  the  privilege  of  a  proletarian  mob  and 


no       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

the  representatives  of  the  privilege  of  a  pluto- 
cratic oligarchy  struck  hands  against  the  men 
who  believe  in  no  privilege.  Germany  sup- 
pressed Bolshevism  and  restored  military  order 
in  the  Russian  provinces  the  Bolshevists  ceded 
to  her,  and  cynically  supported  Bolshevism 
in  the  rest  of  Russia  precisely  because  Bol- 
shevism is  a  cancerous  growth;  Germany 
recognizes  that  anarchy  destroys  freedom; 
therefore  Germany  encourages  anarchy  in  every 
land  to  which  she  cannot  apply  her  own  iron 
despotism;  for  she  wishes  to  destroy  every  na- 
tion that  she  cannot  enslave.  The  Bolshevist 
leaders — it  matters  not  whether  they  were 
sinister  visionaries  or  the  corrupted  agents  of 
Germany — played  Germanj^'s  game  in  order 
to  gain  a  respite  during  which  they  brought  still 
further  destruction  to  their  own  countrymen. 
They  preached  socialism  and  practised  anarchy 
— in  their  extreme  forms  the  two  always  meet 
when  the  effort  is  made  actually  to  apply  them. 
Surely  this  lesson  will  not  be  lost  on  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  the  keen,  kindly, 
brave  people,  who  are  often  slow  to  wake  but 
who  are  far-sighted  and  resolute  when  once 
awake.    We  of  the  United   States   must   set 


THE   ROMANOFF  SCYLLA        in 

ourselves  to  the  task  of  ordering  our  own  house- 
hold in  the  spirit  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  There- 
fore we  must  reahze  that  the  reactionaries 
among  us  are  the  worst  foes  of  order,  and  the 
revolutionaries  the  worst  foes  of  liberty;  and 
unless  we  can  preserve  both  order  and  Hberty 
the  republic  is  doomed.  At  the  moment  the 
profiteers,  and  all  men  who  make  fortunes  out 
of  this  war,  represent  the  worst  types  of  re- 
actionary privilege;  and  on  a  level  of  evil 
with  them  stand  all  the  various  exponents  of 
American  Bolshevism.  Prominent,  although 
not  always  powerful,  among  the  latter  are  the 
professional  intellectuals,  who  vary  from  the 
soft-handed,  noisily  self-assertive  frequenters  of 
frowsy  restaurants  to  the  sissy  socialists,  the 
pink-tea  and  parlor  Bolshevists,  who  support 
what  they  regard  as  "advanced"  papers,  and 
aspire  to  notoriety  as  make-believe  "reds." 
I  call  these  persons  "intellectuals"  in  deference 
to  the  terminology  of  European  politics;  for 
they  ape  the  silly,  half-educated  people,  and 
the  educated  able  people  with  a  moral  or 
mental  twist,  who  in  almost  every  European 
country  have  found  notoriety  and  excitement 
in  fomenting  revolutionary  movements  which 


112       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

they  were  utterly  powerless  to  direct  or  control. 
Unless  the  term  intellectual  is  to  be  construed 
as  excluding  either  character  or  common  sense, 
it  can  be  appHed  to  them  only  in  irony.  In 
our  own  vernacular  they  have  been  styled  the 
exponents  of  "Highbrow"  Hearstism  or  Bol- 
shevism. The  sincere  and  well-meaning  among 
them  come  in  the  class  of  those  described  by 
Don  Marquis  in  his  account  of  "Hermione  and 
her  little  group  of  serious  thinkers."  Those 
in  this  class  usually  furnish  the  funds  with 
which  their  more  astute  brethren  carry  on  the 
propaganda  and  earn  a  shifty  livelihood. 
Worthy  soft-headed  persons  of  both  sexes — 
including  some  who  edit  magazines  or  write 
for  them — think  it  smart  and  uplifting  to  de- 
scribe with  sympathy  the  Russian  exile  who 
wishes  to  smash  our  government  because  the 
"bourgeoisie"  who  love  music  can  purchase 
reserved  seats  at  a  musical  performance — I 
suppose  they  should  be  kept  free  for  the  "pro- 
letariat" to  sit  in  ten  at  a  time;  or  to  eulogize 
the  red-flag  leaders  of  a  "picnic  of  socialist 
locals"  whose  "spiritually  alive"  faces,  in- 
flamed with  "explosive  ideas,  big  emotions, 
and  winged  visions"  the  particular  member  of 


THE  ROMANOFF  SCYLLA        113 

Hermione's  group  of  serious  thinkers  who 
chronicled  them — and  who  evidently  had  not 
exercised  the  infinitesimal  amount  of  thought 
necessary  to  realize  just  what  these  same  ex- 
plosive ideas  of  the  red-flag  gentry  were  at 
that  moment  producing  in  Russia. 

I  am  referring  to  two  articles  chosen  almost 
at  random  from  respectable  magazines.  They 
represent  a  fad — a  fad  which  is  chiefly  foolish, 
but  which  may  become  mischievous.  The 
dilettante  reds  who  gratify  their  vanity  by 
this  fad,  play  into  the  hands  of  the  genuine 
reds,  who  are  not  dilettantes,  and  who  resort 
to  bomb-throwing,  arson,  robbery,  and  mur- 
der as  a  business  and  not  as  a  fad.  The  lead- 
ers of  the  Germanized  socialists  of  this  country 
are  traitors  to  America  and  to  mankind  just 
exactly  as  are  the  Bolshevist  leaders  in  Russia; 
and  some  at  least  of  the  leaders  of  the  Non- 
partisan League  stand  on  the  same  footing. 
The  leaders  of  the  I.  W.  W.  are  no  more  vic- 
tims of  social  wrong,  are  no  more  protesters 
against  social  evil,  than  are  so  many  profes- 
sional gunmen.  There  are  plenty  of  honest, 
misled  men  among  the  rank  and  file  of  all  these 
organizations;  and  plenty  of  wrongs  from  which 


114       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

these  men  suffer;  but  these  men  can  be  helped, 
and  these  wrongs  remedied,  only  if  we  set  our 
faces  Hke  flint  against  the  evil  leaders  who 
would  hurl  our  social  organism  into  just  such 
an  abyss  as  that  which  has  engulfed  Russia. 

So  much  for  the  false  friends  of  liberty.  We 
must  equally  abhor  the  false  friends  of  order. 
Those  who  invoke  order  to  prevent  the  right- 
ing of  wrong  are  the  ultimate  friends  of  dis- 
order. Our  sternest  efi^ort  should  be  exerted 
against  the  man  of  wealth  and  power  who  gets 
the  wealth  by  harming  others  and  uses  the 
power  without  regard  to  the  general  welfare. 
In  times  ahead  we  must  avoid  equally  both 
hardness  of  heart  and  softness  of  head.  We 
must  substitute  the  full  performance  of  duty 
in  a  brotherly  spirit,  both  for  the  mean  and 
arrogant  greed  of  the  haves  and  for  the  mean 
and  envious  greed  of  the  have-nots.  At  pres- 
ent Germany  is  dangerous  as  a  huge  man-eat- 
ing beast  is  dangerous;  Russia  is  dangerous  as 
an  infected  and  plague-stricken  body  is  danger- 
ous. We  must  guard  against  both.  And 
within  our  own  borders  we  must  steer  our 
great  free  republic  as  far  from  the  Romanoff 
Scylla  as  from  the  Bolshevist  Charybdis. 


THE  ROMANOFF  SCYLLA        115 

I  take  Russia  as  an  example  of  what  to  avoid 
merely  because  the  lesson  taught  by  Russia 
is  vivid  in  the  eyes  of  our  people.  Exactly 
tHe  same  lesson  can  be  learned  from  the  French 
Revolution  of  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago. 
What  I  say  now  I  said  in  March,  1912,  at 
Carnegie  Hall: 

I  prefer  to  work  with  moderate,  with  rational 
conservatives,  provided  only  that  they  do  in  good 
faith  strive  forward  toward  the  light.  But  when 
they  halt  and  turn  their  backs  to  the  light,  and  sit 
with  the  scorners  on  the  seats  of  reaction,  then  I 
must  part  company  with  them.  We,  the  people, 
cannot  turn  back.  Our  aim  must  be  steady,  wise 
progress.  It  would  be  well  if  our  people  would 
study  the  history  of  a  sister  republic.  All  the  woes 
of  France  for  a  century  and  a  quarter  have  been 
due  to  the  folly  of  her  people  in  splitting  into  the  two 
camps  of  unreasonable  conservatism  and  unreason- 
able radicalism.  Had  pre-revolutionary  France  lis- 
tened to  men  like  Turgor,  and  backed  them  up,  all 
would  have  gone  well.  But  the  beneficiaries  of 
privilege,  the  Bourbon  reactionaries,  the  short- 
sighted ultraconservatives  turned  down  Turgor, 
and  then  found  that,  instead  of  him,  they  had  ob- 
tained Robespierre.  They  gained  twenty  years* 
freedom  from  all  restraint  and  reform,  at  the  cost 
of  the  whirlwind  of  the  red  terror;  and  in  their  turn 


ii6       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

the  unbridled  extremists  of  the  terror  induced  a 
blind  reaction;  and  so  with  convulsion  and  oscilla- 
tion from  one  extreme  to  another,  with  alternatives 
of  violent  radicalism  and  violent  Bourbonism,  the 
French  people  went  through  misery  toward  a  shat- 
tered goal.  May  we  profit  by  the  experiences  of 
our  brother  republicans  across  the  water,  and  go 
forward  steadily,  avoiding  all  wild  extremes;  and 
may  our  ultraconservatives  remember  that  the 
rule  of  the  Bourbons  brought  on  the  Revolution; 
and  may  our  would-be  revolutionaries  remember 
that  no  Bourbon  was  ever  such  a  dangerous  enemy 
of  the  people  and  of  freedom  as  the  professed  friend 
of  both,  Robespierre.  There  is  no  danger  of  a 
revolution  in  this  country,  but  there  is  grave  dis- 
content and  unrest,  and  in  order  to  remove  them 
there  is  need  of  all  the  wisdom  and  probity  and  deep- 
seated  faith  in  and  purpose  to  uplift  humanity  we 
have  at  our  command. 

Friends,  our  task  as  Americans  is  to  strive  for 
social  and  industrial  justice,  achieved  through  the 
genuine  rule  of  the  people.  This  is  our  end,  our 
purpose.  The  methods  for  achieving  the  end  are 
merely  expedients  to  be  finally  accepted  or  rejected 
according  as  actual  experience  shows  that  they 
work  well  or  ill.  But  in  our  hearts  we  must  have 
this  lofty  purpose,  and  we  must  strive  for  it  in  all 
earnestness  and  sincerity,  or  our  work  will  come  to 
nothing.  In  order  to  succeed  we  need  leaders  of 
inspired  idealism,  leaders  to  whom  are  granted  great 


THE   ROMANOFF  SCYLLA        117 

visions,  who  dream  greatly  and  strive  to  make  their 
dreams  come  true;  who  can  kindle  the  people  with 
the  fire  from  their  own  burning  souls.  The  leader 
for  the  time  being,  whoever  he  may  be,  is  but  an 
instrument  to  be  used  until  broken,  and  then  to  be 
cast  aside;  and  if  he  is  worth  his  salt  he  will  care  no 
more  when  he  is  broken  than  a  soldier  cares  when 
he  is  sent  where  his  life  is  forfeit  in  order  that  the 
victory  may  be  won.  In  the  long  fight  for  right- 
eousness the  watchword  for  us  all  is  "spend  and  be 
spent."  It  is  of  little  matter  whether  any  one  man 
fails  or  succeeds;  but  the  cause  shall  not  fail,  for 
it  is  the  cause  of  mankind. 

We  here  in  America  hold  in  our  hands  the  hope 
of  the  world,  the  fate  of  the  coming  years;  and 
shame  and  disgrace  will  be  ours  if  in  our  eyes  the 
light  of  high  resolve  is  dimmed,  if  we  trail  in  the 
dust  the  golden  hopes  of  men.  If  on  this  new  con- 
tinent we  merely  build  another  country  of  great 
but  unjustly  divided  material  prosperity,  we  shall 
have  done  nothing;  and  we  shall  do  as  little  if  we 
merely  set  the  greed  of  envy  against  the  greed  of 
arrogance,  and  thereby  destroy  the  material  well- 
being  of  all  of  us.  To  turn  this  government  either 
into  government  by  a  plutocracy  or  government  by 
a  mob  would  be  to  repeat  on  a  larger  scale  the 
lamentable  failures  of  the  world  that  is  dead.  We 
stand  against  all  tyranny  by  the  few  or  by  the 
many.  We  stand  for  the  rule  of  the  many  in  the 
interest  of  all  of  us,  for  the  rule  of  the  many  in  a 


ii8       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

spirit  of  courage,  of  common  sense,  of  high  purpose, 
above  all  in  a  spirit  of  kindly  justice  toward  every 
man  and  every  woman.  We  not  merely  admit  but 
insist  that  there  must  be  self-control  on  the  part 
of  the  people,  that  they  must  keenly  perceive  their 
own  duties  as  well  as  the  rights  of  others;  but  we 
also  insist  that  the  people  can  do  nothing,  unless 
they  not  merely  have,  but  exercise  to  the  full,  their 
own  rights.  The  worth  of  our  great  experiment  de- 
pends upon  its  being  in  good  faith  an  experiment — 
the  first  that  has  ever  been  tried — in  true  democracy 
on  the  scale  of  a  continent,  on  a  scale  as  vast  as 
that  of  the  mightiest  empires  of  the  Old  World. 
Surely  this  is  a  noble  ideal,  an  ideal  for  which  it  is 
worth  while  to  strive,  an  ideal  for  which  at  need  it 
is  worth  while  to  sacrifice  much;  for  our  ideal  is  the 
rule  of  all  the  people  in  a  spirit  of  friendliest  brother- 
hood toward  each  and  every  one  of  the  people. 


CHAPTER  IX 
PARLOR   BOLSHEVISM 

THE  most  powerful  indictment  of  the 
corrupt  and  inefficient  tyranny  of  the 
Romanoffs,  or  rather  of  the  Russian 
autocracy,  is  that  it  produced  Bolshevism. 
Dreadful  though  it  is  that  despotism  should 
ruin  men's  bodies,  it  is  worse  that  it  should 
ruin  men's  souls.  Vast  physical  distress  was 
caused  by  the  centuries  of  despotism  which 
Russia  owed  to  the  fact  that  six  hundred  years 
ago  she  lacked  military  ability  to  repel  the 
Mongol  warriors.  But  this  is  overweighed  by 
the  dreadful  qualities  of  soul  which  the  despot- 
ism produced  in  those  who  suffered  under  it. 

We  in  America  have  a  direct  interest  in  this 
evil  phenomenon.  From  the  tyranny  in  Russia 
great  numbers  of  Russians  fled  hither.  Many 
of  these — Mary  Antin  is  a  type — were  emi- 
nently fit  to  Hve  in  a  land  which,  with  all  its 
faults,  is  a  land  of  freedom  and  of  opportunity; 
and  these  gave  much  to  the  land  which  gave 
119 


I20       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

them  so  much.  But  many  have  been  merely 
sources  of  poisonous  corruption  to  the  nation 
which  gave  them  an  asylum.  Many  of  the 
Bolshevist  exiles  to  this  land  returned  to  Rus- 
sia when  the  revolution  broke  out,  and  most 
of  these  were  filled  with  venom  for  this  country. 
The  prime  cause  lay  not  in  our  shortcomings — 
many  though  these  are — but  in  their  own  cor- 
roded souls.  This  moral  corrosion  made  them 
preach  and  practise  the  gospel  of  hatred  and 
malice,  not  only  toward  all  men  of  wealth 
whether  they  did  good  or  evil,  but  toward  all 
honest,  hardworking,  decent-living  men  and 
women  who  were  not  consumed  by  mean  envy 
of  others. 

These  Russian  exiles  were  not  asked  to  come 
here.  They  came  here  so  as  to  be  free  from 
persecution  and  to  better  themselves.  They 
owe  this  country  everything.  But  the  only 
emotions  aroused  in  the  Bolshevist  type  are 
mean  hatred,  mean  desire  to  slander,  and  a 
self-pity  both  mean  and  morbid.  The  moral 
and  mental  attitude  it  introduces  into  this 
country  is  much  more  permanently  mischie- 
vous than  the  bubonic  plague,  and  against  it 
we  should  erect  a  far  more  rigorous  quarantine. 


PARLOR  BOLSHEVISM  121 

The  oppressed  of  other  lands  who  have  de- 
veloped this  kind  of  character  should  be  kept 
out  of  this  land  at  all  hazards;  and  our  immi- 
gration lavv^s  should  promptly  be  changed  ac- 
cordingly. There  are  plenty  of  sordid  and 
arrogant  capitalists  in  this  land;  but  their  most 
harmful  and  unlovely  traits  are  no  worse  and 
no  more  dangerous  than  those  of  this  particular 
type  of  professional  proletarian.  In  its  full 
development  it  produces  the  Lenines  and  Trotz- 
kys  who  have  brought  Russia  to  the  brink 
of  the  abyss,  and  the  Hillquits  and  Victor 
Bergers  and  Eastmans  who  would  lead  our 
people  into  a  complete  ruin,  of  which  one  item 
would  be  subjection  to  the  German  autocracy. 
The  most  sordid  capitalists  and  reactionaries 
can  do  no  more  harm  to  this  country  than  these 
men,  if  given  power,  would  do.  The  worst 
bourbons  of  poHtics  and  business  stand  no 
lower  than  these  leaders  of  the  American 
Bolshevists,  of  the  I.  W.  W.,  the  Germanized 
socialists,  the  anarchists,  and  all  the  squalid 
crew  who  preach  the  gospel  of  envy  and  hatred, 
who  preach  a  class  war  which,  when  preaching 
is  translated  into  action,  expresses  itself  through 
the  bomb  and  the  torch. 


122       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

These  men  are  encouraged,  and  our  own 
moral  fibre  is  weakened,  by  the  parlor  or  pink- 
tea  or  sissy  Bolshevism  dear  to  the  hearts  of  so 
many  of  our  people  who  like  to  think  of  them- 
selves as  intellectuals,  and  who  are,  perhaps, 
particularly  apt  to  find  expression  for  their 
views  in  the  New  Republic.''-  Most  certainly, 
hard  indifference  to  the  conditions  and  op- 
portunities of  the  immigrant  is  a  hideous 
wrong;  but  it  is  not  bettered  by  a  dilettante 
sentimentalism  on  behalf  of  those  among  the 
immigrants  who  are  of  semicriminal  type, 
whether  or  not  they  seek  to  mask  their  de- 
pravity by  claiming  to  be  the  victims  of  social 
oppression.     We  must  never  again  view  the 

^  The  natural  sympathy  of  Germanism  for  Bolshevism — 
whether  the  gutter  Bolshevism  beloved  by  the  Hearst  publica- 
tions, or  the  parlor  Bolshevism  inculcated  by  the  New  Republic — 
was  incidentally  and  amusingly  brought  out  by  Assistant  Attor- 
ney-General Becker  in  the  course  of  an  investigation  among  the 
interned  enemy  aliens  at  Fort  Oglethorpe.  One  German  testified 
that  the  most  widely  read  periodicals  among  the  interned  Ger- 
mans were  "  the  Nation  of  New  York  and  the  New  Republic.  .  .  . 
[The  Germans]  make  only  a  few  subscriptions  .  .  .  for  fear  that 
the  government  censor  would  catch  on  to  the  popularity  of  the 
Nation  and  the  New  Republic."  Many  of  our  professional  in- 
tellectuals have  made  a  contemptible  showing  in  this  war.  At 
the  "American  Sociological  Congress,"  which  met  in  December, 
1915,  the  speakers  in  large  proportion  seemed  to  be  divided  be- 
tween those  engaged  in  inane  pacifist  prattle  and  those  engaged 
in  downright  sinister  German  propaganda. 


PARLOR  BOLSHEVISM  123 

immigrant  merely  as  a  labor  unit.  We  must 
think  of  him  only  as  a  future  citizen,  whose 
children  are  to  share  with  our  children  the 
heritage  of  this  land.  We  must  do  for  him 
everything  that  is  right;  and  we  must  tolerate 
from  him  nothing  that  is  wrong. 

I  have  spoken  of  immigrants  of  Bolshevist 
type.  As  a  contrast  I  give  the  story  of  two 
Americans  of  the  best  American  type.  Otto 
Rafael  was  born  on  the  East  Side  of  New  York, 
of  parents  who  came  from  Russia.  While  I 
was  police  commissioner  my  attention  was 
attracted  to  him  by  his  saving  a  woman  and 
a  couple  of  children  at  a  fire;  I  found  him  at 
the  Bowery  branch  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  although 
he  is  himself  a  Jew.  He  came  on  the  poHce 
force.  He  did  not  spend  his  time  in  the  in- 
dulgence of  hate  and  envy  toward  those  who 
were  better  off.  He  did  his  work  as  a  police- 
man up  to  the  handle,  and  he  used  his  salary 
chiefly  to  help  out  his  family.  He  brought 
over  one  or  two  kinsfolk  from  Russia;  he  edu- 
cated a  sister;  he  enabled  a  brother  to  study 
for  and  become  a  doctor.  He  is  now  a  lieu- 
tenant of  police.  At  the  same  time  that  he 
entered  the  force  an  ex-man-of-war's  man,  who 


124       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

had  served  his  time  in  the  United  States  Navy, 
also  entered  the  force.  His  name  was  Edward 
Burke;  he  is  another  American  of  the  best 
type.  His  parents  were  born  in  Ireland.  When 
the  Spanish  War  came  he  got  a  holiday  for  six 
months,  re-entered  the  navy,  and  served  as 
captain  of  a  gun.  He  is  a  hard  man  physically; 
I  doubt  if  he  can  be  hurt  by  anything  that  hasn't 
an  edge  to  it.     He  is  now  a  captain  of  police. 

Burke  and  Rafael  were  appointed  on  their 
merits;  I  wanted  to  get  the  best  possible  men 
for  the  force,  and  they  owed  me  gratitude  for 
putting  them  there  only  to  the  extent  that  I 
owed  them  gratitude  for  being  the  kind  of  men 
I  wanted.  In  other  words,  they  owed  me 
nothing.  But  they  have  chosen  to  remain 
very  stanch  friends,  in  fair  weather  and  foul 
weather.  When  we  entered  the  great  war, 
both  went  into  training  to  get  in  the  division 
I  had  asked  permission  to  raise;  each  fitting 
himself  for  special  work — Burke  handling  ma- 
chine-guns, while  Rafael's  particular  line  I 
for  the  moment  forget.  Both  would  have 
held  commissions  under  me  if  I  had  been  al- 
lowed to  raise  troops. 

These  two  men   represent  Americanism   as 


PARLOR   BOLSHEVISM  125 

opposed  to  Bolshevism.  They  did  not  wallow 
in  the  emotional  mud-bath,  which  consists  of 
one  part  morbid  self-pity  and  three  parts  envy, 
hatred,  and  malice  toward  others — a  mixture 
equally  maudlin  and  sinister.  They  didn't 
pity  themselves  at  all.  They  didn't  hate 
others.  They  merely  resolved  to  do  as  well 
as  others.     And  they  did  so.     They  were  men. 

I  do  not  mean  that  these  two  men  can  be 
taken  as  typical  of  the  whole  mass.  They  were 
exceptions.  They  had  power  of  initiative  and 
of  leadership.  It  is  our  duty  to  help  make 
conditions  such  that  life  will  be  fairer  and 
easier  for  all,  and  the  highways  of  opportunity 
kept  more  open  than  hitherto.  But  our  aim 
can  be  reached  by  encouraging  the  essentially 
American  activities  and  attitude  shown  by 
these  two  men,  and  not  by  practising  parlor 
Bolshevism  ourselves  or  encouraging  applied 
and  murderous  Bolshevism  among  immigrants. 

The  Bolshevists  have  no  lesson  to  teach 
America  except  what  to  avoid.  They  have 
betrayed  democracy  in  America,  England,  and 
France.  They  have  plunged  Russia  into  ruin. 
They  fatuously  hoped  by  this  betrayal  of  their 
allies  to  make  peace  with  the  German  mili- 


126       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

taristic  autocracy,  and  then  to  betray  it  in 
turn.  But  the  Germans  were  just  as  false, 
cunning,  and  treacherous,  and  a  thousand 
times  more  able;  and  having  made  the  Bolshe- 
viki  publish  themselves  to  the  world  as  traitors 
to  liberty,  they  have  now  proceeded  to  trample 
them  under  foot.  And  the  Bolsheviki  showed 
willingness  only  to  fight  their  fellow  Russians; 
they  were  helpless  before  the  German  invaders. 
Their  chief  energies  have  been  devoted  to 
what  Lenine  calls  "internal  war."  They  have 
announced,  as  reported  in  the  press,  that  they 
intend  to  confiscate  all  the  property  of  the 
"small  shopkeepers,  more  or  less  well-to-do 
peasants,  and  workers  who  have  submitted  to 
a  bourgeois  point  of  view" — that  is,  thrifty 
skilled  mechanics.  In  other  words,  their  hos- 
tility is  now  concentrated  on  the  analogues  of 
American  farmers,  small  shopkeepers,  carpen- 
ters, steel  puddlers,  engineers,  trainmen,  black- 
smiths, clerks,  deep-sea  fishermen,  and  the  like. 
They  announced  at  one  time  (before  they 
finally  and  definitely  threw  Russia  under  the 
German  yoke)  that  these  men  and  their  wives 
were  to  be  employed  to  dig  trenches,  presum- 
ably because  they  thought  they  were  unused  to 


PARLOR  BOLSHEVISM  127 

this  form  of  labor,  the  announcement  reading: 
"All  members  of  the  bourgeois  class,  the  women 
as  well  as  the  men,  must  enter  these  battalions 
under  surveillance  of  the  Red  Guard  and  in 
case  of  resistance  must  be  shot."  No  more 
utter  tyranny  existed  under  the  RomanoiFs. 
They  purpose  to  stamp  out  of  existence  all  the 
men  of  leadership  and  of  special  value,  all  the 
men  whose  activities  do  most  to  prevent  the 
commonwealth  from  sinking  to  that  level  of 
savagery  on  which  the  tonguey,  supple,  and 
either  immoral  or  crack-brained  anarchist  lead- 
ers would  land  their  deluded  followers. 

The  precise  analogues  of  these  Russian  lead- 
ers preach  similar  doctrines  and  a  similar  class 
war  here  in  the  United  States.  They  are  per- 
mitted to  do  so  because  it  is  our  wise  principle 
not  to  interfere  with  free  speech  by  prohibiting 
the  preaching  even  of  moral  treason  until  the 
narrow  limits  of  legal  treason  are  reached;  and 
our  people  as  a  whole  regard  t^em  with  good- 
humored  and  rather  ignorant  indifference.  But 
there  should  be  no  mistake  as  to  the  fact  that 
the  preaching  of  this  kind  of  class  war  has 
nothing  in  common  with  ordinary  political  dis- 
cussion or  party  differences.     The  attempt  to 


128       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

translate  it  into  serious  action  would  mean  real 
war — and  in  a  healthy  country  like  ours  the 
lunatic  fringe  would  not  come  off  first  best  in 
such  event.  And  in  such  event  if  the  real  Bol- 
shevists were  successful  the  parlor  Bolshevists 
would  be  among  the  first  to  be  destroyed — 
exactly  as  the  Petit  Trianop  disciples  of  Rous- 
seau were  among  the  first  to  fall  when  the  red 
terror  swept  France.  And  if  (as  would  surely 
happen)  the  real  Bolshevists  were  not  success- 
ful, the  parlor  Bolshevists  would  owe  their 
shivering  safety  to  the  applied  and  practical 
Americanism  of  men  like  Burke  and  Rafael. 

It  is  the  Burkes  and  Rafaels  and  the  men  of 
like  quality  in  every  section  of  our  country 
and  in  every  walk  of  fife,  whatever  their  creed 
and  whatever  their  ancestry,  who  stand  for  the 
real  and  practical  Americanism;  and  it  is  in 
their  hands  that  the  future  of  this  country  lies. 


CHAPTER  X 

TELL  THE  TRUTH  AND  SPEED  UP 
THE  WAR 

OUR  prime  need  now  is,  and  for  eighteen 
months  has  been,  to  speed  up  the  war. 
The  chief  method  of  making  the  gov- 
ernment meet  this  need  has  been  telling  the 
truth. 

In  handHng  our  army  and  navy  deeds  are 
everything  and  words  unbacked  by  deeds  or 
betrayed  by  deeds  are  worse  than  nothing. 
When  last  March  General  Wood  and  General 
Young  and  Mr.  Taft  and  the  present  writer 
asked  for  the  immediate  raising  of  an  army  of 
five  million  troops  (we  meant  fighting  soldiers, 
and  not  an  alloy  of  40  per  cent  of  non-comba- 
tants), our  purpose  was  not  rhetorical.  We 
desired  to  see  the  army  provided  for  by  law 
and  then  called  into  being  by  executive  action. 
But  to  President  Wilson  the  matter  seemed 
primarily  one  of  competitive  rhetoric.  Obvi- 
ously he  felt  uneasy  about  the  proposal  and 

129 


130       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

treated  it  as  one  which  could  be  deftly  put 
aside  by  adroit  use  of  language.  Accordingly, 
with  marked  histrionic  effect,  he  asked,  "w^hy 
limit  the  army"  to  the  five  million  we  pro- 
posed, and  announced  that  he  wished  an  army 
.  "without  limit."  This  was  highly  satisfactory 
as  rhetoric.  But  the  action  of  the  President, 
taken  through  his  Secretary  of  War,  showed 
that  it  was  merely  rhetoric.  The  phrase  was 
an  "army  without  limit";  tht  fact  was  that  the 
armj^  was  fixed  at  a  much  lower  limit  than  that 
which  we  had  asked,  and  was  thus  fixed  six 
months  after  we  urged  immediate  action.  Sec- 
retary Baker  did  not  set  himself  to  meet  our 
greatest  military  need  of  to-day,  which  is  a 
thorough  mobilization  of  our  whole  man-power 
for  service  in  our  armies  and  in  our  war  indus- 
tries. He  set  himself  to  prevent  the  meeting 
of  this  need.  Congress  last  spring  made  ready 
to  go  ahead  with  the  "fight  or  work"  plan. 
But  Mr.  Baker,  acting  for  the  President,  inter- 
vened. He  asked  for  delay,  for  procrastina- 
tion, and  of  course  thereby  paralyzed  congres- 
sional action.  He  protested  against  the  en- 
largement of  the  draft-age  limits.  He  protested 
against  planning  more  than  a  few  months  in 


TELL  THE  TRUTH  131 

advance.  He  said  that  we  were  "many  months 
ahead  of  our  original  hope  in  regard  to  the 
transportation  of  men*'  overseas;  but  he  omitted 
to  add  that  this  was  because  the  original  plans 
were  hopelessly  inadequate. 

Never  in  our  history  has  there  been  more  fat- 
uous incompetence  than  that  displayed,  ahke 
in  plan  and  action,  by  the  War  Department 
during  the  first  nine  months  after  we  entered 
the  war.  Then  the  Military  Affairs  Committee 
of  the  Senate  rendered  the  American  people 
its  debtor  by  stepping  in  and  forcing  some 
reorganization,  some  efficiency,  in  the  War  De- 
partment. But  the  Department  still  refused 
to  do  anything  that  really  counted  overseas. 
In  March,  when  the  great  German  drive  began, 
a  year  after  we  had  entered  the  war,  our  gal- 
lant little  army  in  France  numbered  fewer 
soldiers  (not  non-combatants)  than  those  in 
the  army  of  little  Belgium,  and  did  not  possess 
a  single  airplane,  tank,  or  field-gun,  save  those 
we  had  obtained  from  the  hard-pressed  French. 
The  tremendous  German  drive  galvanized  even 
the  War  Department  into  action.  It  was  Lu- 
dendorflp  who  effectively  revised  the  plans  of 
President  Wilson  and  Secretary  Baker. 


132       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

Then  the  English  lent  us  ships,  and  we  really 
did  begin  to  send  men  abroad,  until  we  had 
perhaps  a  million  soldiers  and  over  half  as 
many  non-combatants  across.  We  actually 
did  what  we  ought  to  have  done,  and  by 
the  exercise  of  moderate  efficiency  would  have 
done,  just  one  year  previously.  But  in  June 
the  drive  for  the  time  being  halted,  and  imme- 
diately Mr.  Baker  proposed  a  reversion  to  our 
former  Rip  Van  Winkle  slumber.  Of  course, 
what  we  ought  to  do  now  is  with  the  utmost 
energy  to  prepare  to  place  a  gigantic  army 
overseas  next  year.  We  have  begun  in  earnest 
to  build  ships  and  airplanes,  and  are  preparing 
to  build  cannon  and  tanks.  We  are  more 
populous  and  with  greater  resources  than  Ger- 
many. We  are  more  populous  than  France 
and  Great  Britain  combined.  These  nations 
have  been  through  a  terrible  four  years'  war. 
We  have  as  yet  suffered  no  serious  strain. 
Next  spring  we  ought  to  have  in  France  an 
army  larger  than  the  German  army.  We  ought 
to  have  an  army  larger  than  the  armies  of 
England  and  France  combined;  we  ought  to 
have  our  troops  fighting  alongside  the  gallant 
Italian  army  and  in  the  Balkans;  we  ought  to 


TELL  THE  TRUTH  133 

have  one  or  two  hundred  thousand  men  ferried 
in  Japanese  ships  to  take  part 'in  the  great  war 
for  civilization  against  the  Turks  in  western 
Asia;  and  we  ought  to  have  at  least  a  hundred 
thousand  fighting  troops  in  Siberia.  This 
means  that  we  ought  to  have  overseas  next 
spring  an  army  of  five  million  fighting  men, 
which  in  turn  means  that  we  ought  to  provide 
now  for  an  army  of  between  six  and  seven  mil- 
lion men  all  told. 

Nor  is  it  only  our  army  as  to  which  there  is 
now  failure  to  provide  for  the  future.  The 
same  is  true  for  the  navy.  During  the  first 
six  months  of  the  war  the  navy  was  almost  as 
badly  handled  as  the  army,  and  it  has  not  yet 
recovered  from  its  complete  mismanagement 
during  the  previous  four  years.  Four  years 
ago  Admiral  Bradley  Fiske  dared  to  tell  the 
truth  about  naval  conditions.  He  thereby  ren- 
dered a  very  great  service  to  the  country,  and 
for  doing  this  the  authorities  punished  him, 
exactly  as  Wood  was  punished  for  similar  truth- 
telling;  and  thereby  in  both  cases  they  served 
notice  on  the  best  men  in  the  army  and  navy 
that  they  jeopardized  their  careers  if  they  told 
the  truth  in  the  interest  of  our  people  as  a 


134       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

whole.  During  the  last  nine  months  the  navy 
appears  to  have  been  on  the  whole  well  han- 
dled— and  the  officers  and  enlisted  men  on  the 
ships  have  made  the  same  admirable  record 
that  has  been  made  by  the  officers  and  enlisted 
men  of  our  army  and  marine  corps  ashore. 
Admiral  Sims  and  those  serving  under  him 
have  made  all  our  people  their  debtors.  But 
it  now  also  appears  from  the  published  letters 
and  statements  of  Admirals  Benson  and  Palmer 
that  we  are  not  taking  thought  for  the  future 
so  far  as  the  navy  is  concerned.  The  two  ad- 
mirals show  that  we  are  far  short  of  the  proper 
number  not  only  of  enlisted  men  but  of  officers. 
Incidentally  the  letter  of  Admiral  Palmer, 
dated  June  7,  shows  that  the  naval  experts 
in  the  Department  reported  to  the  Secretary 
that  we  need  **an  enlisted  strength  of  225,000 
men,  if  we  are  to  carry  on  a  successful  war." 
Mr.  Daniels,  however,  refused  to  follow  the 
recommendations  of  his  skilled  naval  advisers 
and  asked  only  for  131,000  men,  which,  says 
Admiral  Palmer,  *'is  very  much  less  than  our 
requirements  to  organize  the  navy  for  war,'* 
and  the  leading  majority  members  of  the  House 
Naval  Comrhittee  opposed  even  this  increase. 


TELL  THE  TRUTH  135 

Admiral  Palmer  in  his  letter  states  the  truth 
with  vigorous  precision,  saying  that  the  fleet 
and  shore  organizations  of  the  navy  "on  paper 
appear  to  be  ready  for  any  emergency;  but 
actually  they  are  not.  .  .  .  To  fail  to  recog- 
nize this  situation  is  to  court  national  disas- 
ter. .  .  .  Such  a  weakness  in  the  navy  invites 
a  national  catastrophe.  Even  though,  through 
the  strength  of  our  alHes,  no  national  catas- 
trophe does  come,  it  is  not  a  wise  policy  to 
spend  a  billion  and  a  half  for  a  navy  a  year, 
and  then  not  use  it  well  because  it  costs  a  mil- 
lion more  to  pay  the  men  to  run  it  properly." 
Admiral  Benson,  in  taking  the  same  position, 
derides  anew  the  argument  that  we  need  not 
prepare  because  "the  war  may  end  soon,"  and 
says  that  even  if  this  fatuous  statement  is  true, 
"a  navy  comparable  with  our  importance  is 
the  first  essential.  .  .  .  Ships  alone  cannot 
make  a  navy  ...  it  is  equally  essential  that 
we  have  the  men  to  man  these  ships  and  the 
ofiicers  of  all  grades  sufficient  to  insure  the 
efficiency  of  the  whole." 

Reading  these  admirable  statements  by 
trained  war  officers,  we  realize  keenly  the  grave 
wrong  done  this  nation  when  the  administra- 


136       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

tion  deliberately  muzzled  the  army  officers, 
who  before  the  war  could  and  would  have  told 
our  people  their  urgent  miUtary  needs,  by  the 
following  order: 

War  Department, 
Washington,  February  23,  1915. 
General  Orders  No.  10. 

Officers  of  the  Army  will  refrain,  until  further 
orders,  from  giving  out  for  publication  any  inter- 
view, statement,  discussion,  or  article  on  the  mili- 
tary situation  in  the  United  States  or  abroad,  as 
any  expression  of  their  views  on  this  subject  at 
present  is  prejudicial  to  the  best  interests  of  the 
service. 

[2260070,  A.  G.  O.] 

By  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War: 

H.  L.  Scott, 
Brigadier  General,  Chief  of  Staff. 

By  this  order  we  deprived  our  people  of  all 
chance  of  learning  from  military  experts  our 
military  needs.  Our  soldiers,  the  men  of  deeds, 
were  forbidden  to  tell  us  how  to  turn  our  talk 
into  deeds;  and  they  were  thus  forbidden  by 
the  pohticians,  the  men  of  phrases,  who  talked 
incessantly  and  did  nothing  to  back  up  their 
talk. 


TELL  THE  TRUTH  137 

It  is  well  to  remember  that,  when  this  order 
was  issued,  the  present  Secretary  of  War,  Mr. 
Baker,  was  mayor  of  Cleveland;  and  he  at 
about  that  time  notified  the  representatives  of 
the  Security  League  that  "he  was  a  pacifist 
and  was  opposed  to  the  agitation  for  prepared- 
ness." A  year  later,  although  President  Wil- 
son had  been  notified  by  Ambassador  Gerard 
that  Germany  intended  to  attack  America  if 
victorious  over  the  Allies,  he  appointed  Mr. 
Baker  Secretar}^  of  War.  By  no  possibility 
could  Mr.  Wilson  have  rendered  a  greater  ser- 
vice to  the  Kaiser  and  the  German  militarists. 

A  Russian  peasant  woman.  Madam  Botch- 
kareva,  a  major  in  the  Woman's  Death  Bat- 
talion, who  has  been  wounded  four  times  in 
battle  with  the  Germans,  came  here  from  Si- 
beria last  May  to  beg  us  to  help  Russia  with 
facts  instead  of  phrases.  The  authorities  in 
Washington  have  at  each  successive  crisis  in 
Russia  acted  from  one  to  ten  months  after 
the  action  was  useless.  They  failed  to  give 
economic  help.  They  feared  to  take  military 
action.  They  endeavored  to  conciliate  the 
Bolshevists  and  yet  not  to  do  anything  for 
them.     They  endeavored  to  oppose  the  pro- 


138       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

German  Russians,  and  yet  not  to  offend  them 
too  deeply.  They  hoped  for  success  in  the 
effort,  so  dear  to  those  who  at  heart  are  pacifists, 
to  hit  soft,  to  hit  a  Httle,  but  not  very  much. 
Botchkareva  insisted  that  only  an  army 
(backed,  of  course,  by  ample  economic  aid  for 
the  Russians)  would  be  of  real  help  to  Russia 
against  the  Germans  and  the  pro-German 
Bolshevists,  and  she  was  outspoken  in  her 
comments  on  the  proposal  to  hit  soft,  remark- 
ing to  one  of  our  high  administrators:  "You 
Americans  seem  to  delight  in  rivers  of  words. 
I  have  no  time  for  words.  I  want  to  know 
what  you  are  going  to  do  to  stop  Germany; 
and  I  am  here  to  tell  you  one  way  of  doing  it." 

Recently  there  have  occurred  several  in- 
cidents which  ought  to  wake  this  nation  to 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  fine  phrases  are 
no  substitutes  for  brave  deeds,  and  that  re- 
liance upon  them  represents  folly. 

For  several  years  we  submitted  (as  we  are 
now  submitting)  to  the  murder  of  our  citizens, 
the  rape  of  our  women,  and  finally  to  the  kilHng 
of  our  soldiers,  by  the  authorized  representa- 
tives of  the  Mexican  Government.  We  waged 
two   inglorious   little  wars   with   the   Mexican 


TELL  THE  TRUTH  139 

Government,  but  finally  admitted  defeat  and 
not  only  recognized  but  fawned  upon  those 
responsible  for  the  outrages.  We  were  told 
that  thereby  we  would  so  impress  the  Mexicans 
with  our  good  intentions  and  magnanimity  and 
desire  for  peace  that  the}^  would  begin  to  love 
us  dearly.  Of  course,  w^e  merely  incurred  their 
utter  contempt  and  turned  Mexico  into  a  hot- 
bed of  anti-American  and  pro-German  intrigue. 
The  results  of  timidity  masquerading  as  peace- 
ful forbearance  are  set  forth  in  a  recent  article 
in  a  strong  administration  but  stanchly  pa- 
triotic newspaper,  the  St.  Louis  Republic,  as 
follows:  "We  have  twice  invaded  the  territory 
of  our  neighbor  to  the  south,  withdrawing  each 
time  without  any  very  definite  accomplishment 
except  to  leave  a  trail  of  bitter  feeling.  We 
now  have  more  bitter  enemies  in  Mexico  than 
in  any  other  country  except  Germany."  If 
we  had  shown  strength  and  courage  we  would 
have  secured  Mexico's  genuine  respect.  Benev- 
olent phrasemongering  has  not  proved  a  satis- 
factory substitute  for  strength  and  courage. 
It  never  will  so  prove.  It  did  not  so  prove 
with  Germany.  If  after  this  war  we  persist 
in  it,  other  nations  will  grow  to  regard  us  as 


I40       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

Germany  and  Mexico  now  do.  The  American 
pacifist  has  been  the  potent  ally  of  the  German 
mihtarist  and  the  silly  tool  of  the  Hun  within 
our  gates.  In  the  future  we  shall  gain  the  re- 
spect and  friendship  of  well-disposed  nations 
and  the  respect  and  fear  of  ill-disposed  nations 
by  prepared  strength;  and  professions  of  paci- 
fism and  of  general  good  intentions,  if  we  fail 
to  prepare  our  strength,  will  conciliate  nobody, 
will  make  us  despised  by  everybody,  and  will 
expose  us  to  the  hostility  of  the  forces  of  evil 
throughout  the  world. 

This  war  will  not  be  won  by  phrases.  It 
will  be  won  by  the  hard  fighting  of  the  fight- 
ing men  at  the  front.  And  when  this  war  has 
been  won,  America  will  not  be  able  to  keep 
the  respect  or  even  the  good-will  of  other  na- 
tions by  fine  phrases  about  internationalism, 
pacifism,  a  League  of  Nations,  and  the  like. 
We  must  trust  to  deeds,  not  words;  to  facts, 
not  phrases.  We  must  trust  to  an  aroused, 
unified,  and  intense  spirit  of  nationalism  and 
to  the  prepared  readiness  to  defend  our  rights, 
and  the  rights  of  others,  by  our  own  hardened 
strength  and  courage. 

Everything  we   have   accomplished   in   this 


TELL  THE  TRUTH  141 

war — including  going  into  the  war — has  been 
due  solely  to  courageous,  constructive  criticism 
of  the  administration,  and  insistence  upon 
telHng  the  truth  in  order  to  get  us  into  the 
war,  and  then  to  make  us  do  our  duty  in  the 
war. 

Only  truth-telling  in  fearless  criticism  forced 
our  entry  into  the  war,  and  forced  our  belated 
preparedness  for  the  war.  Only  resolute  ham- 
mering forced  the  raising  of  our  army  to  some- 
thing like  a  proper  size,  and  forced  its  being 
sent  overseas.  Nothing  but  steady  criticism 
and  relentless  exposure  put  a  stop  to  the  do- 
nothing  policy  as  regards  ships,  troops,  rifles, 
airplanes,  machine-guns,  cannon,  and  tanks. 
Nothing  but  complaint  and  agitation  brought 
some  improvement  in  the  actual  management 
of  the  War  Department.  The  moral  awakening 
of  America,  and  the  growth  in  our  win-the- 
war  efficiency,  have  been  due  solely  to  the 
pressure  brought  on  the  administration  by 
fearless  truth-telling  and  constructive  criticism 
from  without.  Nothing  has  done  more  damage 
than  the  persistent  concealment  of  the  facts 
and  denial  of  the  truth  by  the  administration 
and    its  constant  glittering  prophecies,  v/hich 


142       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

were  not  fulfilled.  It  would  be  well  for  it  to 
remember  the  recent  answer  of  Marshal  Foch 
when  asked  about  future  prospects:  ** Realities 
are  far  better  than  any  sort  of  promise.  It  is 
useless  to  make  promises  that  may  give  rise 
to  exaggerated  hopes.  Nothing  but  realities 
count." 


CHAPTER  XI 
BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS 

A  STUDY  of  the  American  army  for  the 
year  succeeding  our  entry  into  the  war 
is  a  study  of  the  effects  of  broomstick 
preparedness.  All  who  defend  this  type  of 
preparedness  are  themselves,  however  ami- 
cable and  well-meaning,  broomstick  apologists. 
Over  eighteen  months  have  now  passed 
since  we  admitted  that  we  were  at  war,  and 
over  twenty  months  since  the  Germans  frankly 
began  war  upon  us.  With  our  immense  man- 
power, wealth,  and  resources,  the  natural  fight- 
ing qualities  of  our  men  and  the  business  energy 
and  the  mechanical  efficiency  of  our  people, 
we  have  now  developed  a  force  that  has  made 
us  a  highly  important  factor  in  the  war.  Seven- 
teen months  after  we  entered  the  war  we  at 
last  had  a  sufficiency  of  well-trained  troops  to 
enable  General  Pershing  for  the  first  time  to 
take  part  in  the  war  with  a  separate  army,  an 
army  such  as  the  French  had  and  the  English 
had.     But  this   army  Vv^as  still  very  small  in 

143 


144       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

size,  compared  to  either  the  French  or  Brit- 
ish armies.  Moreover  it  was  able  to  act  only 
because  it  had  obtained  from  our  allies  the 
cannon,  airplanes,  tanks,  machine-guns,  and 
the  gas  necessary  in  modern  warfare.  With- 
out what  we  have  thus  obtained  from  our  allies 
we  would  have  been  absolutely  helpless.  But 
the  gallantry  and  fighting  efficiency  of  our 
men,  and  the  fact  that  several  hundred  thou- 
sand are  now  fit  for  use  at  the  front,  have  made 
us  already  of  very  real  weight  against  the  Ger- 
mans, for  when  the  scales  are  almost  trembling 
in  the  balance  a  relatively  small  weight  of  effort 
will  determine  the  outcome.  Therefore,  the 
large  number  of  well-meaning  persons  who  are 
very  forgetful,  and  who  like  to  tickle  their 
vanity  by  refusing  to  face  what  is  unpleasant, 
tend  already  to  say  that  our  unpreparedness 
did  not  amount  to  anything  after  all,  and  that 
all  things  are  all  right,  and  that  nobody  must 
speak  about  the  wrongs  of  the  past.  For  this 
reason  it  is  essential  that  our  people  should 
know  just  what  our  shortcomings  were. 

We  cannot  learn  about  these  shortcomings 
from  military  officers.  The  administration  by 
its    treatment    of    General    Wood    has    ren- 


BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS   145 

dered  it  a  work  of  the  highest  danger  for  any 
American  army  officer  to  tell  the  truth  that 
ought  to  be  told.  General  Wood,  two  years 
before  we  went  into  the  war,  and  again  one 
year  before  we  went  into  the  war,  appeared 
before  the  Congressional  Military  Committees 
and  set  forth  our  needs.  When  at  the  end  of 
last  winter  he  returned  from  his  stay  in  France, 
he  told  us  what  ought  at  once  to  be  done.  The 
administration  in  every  case  refused  to  profit 
by  what  he  had  testified,  and  yet  in  every  case 
the  events  have  made  good  everything  he  said. 
It  is  to  General  Wood  that  we  owe  primarily 
the  Plattsburg  officers'  training-camps  in  191 5 
and  1916.  These  Plattsburg  training-camps 
did  a  work  that  cannot  be  overestimated,  in 
providing  officers;  and  it  was  the  one  really 
effective  bit  of  preparation  on  our  part.  All 
that  General  Wood  thus  advised  and  thus  did 
was  of  the  very  highest  value  to  the  country. 
Instead  of  rewarding  him  for  it,  the  adminis- 
tration has  punished  him  in  the  way  hardest 
to  bear  for  a  gallant  and  patriotic  soldier.  This 
has  represented  not  only  a  cruel  injustice  to 
him,  but  a  deeply  unpatriotic  refusal  to  meet 
the  country's  needs. 


146       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

Therefore,  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  quote  the 
first-hand  testimony  I  have  had  as  to  some  of 
the  vital  shortcomings  in  the  administration 
of  the  War  Department  and  the  army  during 
the  first  eighteen  months  of  the  war. 

But  in  the  camps  I  visited  I  saw  some  things 
so  evident  that  no  harm  can  come  to  any 
officer  from  my  speaking  of  them;  and  there 
are  some  things  which  are  now  matters  of  com- 
mon knowledge,  although  the  War  Depart- 
ment did  everything  it  could  to  keep  them  from 
the  knowledge  of  the  people. 

In  the  fall  of  19 17  the  enormous  majority 
of  our  men  in  the  encampments  were  drilling 
with  broomsticks  or  else  with  rudely  whittled 
guns.  As  late  as  the  beginning  of  December 
they  had  in  the  camps  almost  only  wooden 
machine-guns  and  wooden  field-cannon.  In 
the  camps  I  saw  barrels  mounted  on  sticks 
on  which  zealous  captains  were  endeavoring 
to  teach  their  men  how  to  ride  a  horse.  At 
that  time  we  had  one  or  two  divisions  of  well- 
trained  infantry  in  France — ^which  would  have 
been  simply  lapped  up  if  placed  against  the 
army  of  any  formidable  military  power.  At 
that  time,  eight  months  after  we  had  gone  to 


BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS   147 

war,  the  army  we  had  gathered  in  the  canton- 
ments had  neither  the  rifles,  the  machine-guns, 
the  cannon,  the  tanks,  nor  the  airplanes  which 
would  have  enabled  them  to  make  any  fight 
at  all  against  any  army  of  any  military  power 
that  could  have  landed  on  our  shores.  It 
would  have  been  as  helpless  against  an  invading 
army  as  so  many  savages  armed  with  stone- 
headed  axes.  We  were  wholly  unable  to 
defend  ourselves  a  year  after  we  had  gone  to 
war.  We  owed  our  safety  only  to  the  English, 
French,  and  Italian  fleets  and  armies. 

The  cause  was  our  refusal  to  prepare  in  ad- 
vance. President  Wilson's  message  of  Decem- 
ber, 1914,  in  which  he  ridiculed  those  who  ad- 
vocated preparedness,  was  part  of  the  cause. 
His  Presidential  campaign,  in  1916,  on  the  "he 
kept  us  out  of  war"  issue  was  part  of  the  cause. 
We  paid  the  price  later  with  broomstick  rifles, 
log-wood  cannon,  soldiers  without  shoes,  and 
epidemics  of  pneumonia  in  the  camps.  We 
are  paying  the  price  now  in  shortage  of  coal 
and  congestion  of  transportation,  and  in  the 
double  cost  of  necessary  war-supplies.  We 
are  paying  the  price  and  shall  pay  the  price  in 
the  shape  of  taxes  and  a  national  debt  at  least 


148       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

twice  as  large  as  would  have  been  the  case 
if  with  forethought  and  wisdom  we  had  pre- 
pared in  advance.  We  have  paid  the  price  in 
the  blood  of  tens  of  thousands  of  gallant  men. 
The  refusal  to  prepare,  and  the  price  we  now 
pay  because  of  the  refusal,  stand  in  the  rela- 
tion of  cause  and  effect. 

I  do  not  dwell  on  these  facts  to  blame  any- 
body. I  dwell  on  them  in  order  to  wake  our 
people  to  the  necessity  of  learning  the  lesson 
they  teach.  In  order  to  speed  up  the  war  it 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  tell  the  truth.  Un- 
til Senator  Chamberlain's  Committee  on  Mili- 
tary Affairs  made  its  investigation  there  was 
no  change  for  the  better  in  the  work  of  the 
War  Department.  Until  Senator  Thomas's 
subcommittee  investigated  the  airplane  situa- 
tion, the  American  people  were  kept  in  com- 
plete ignorance  of  the  utter  breakdown  of  our 
air  programme.  Primarily  this  condition  was 
due  to  the  policy  of  unpreparedness  to  which 
the  administration  adhered  during  the  two  and 
a  half  years,  when  even  the  blindest  ought  to 
have  read  the  lesson  being  taught  by  the  great 
war.  Since  the  war  broke  out  the  administra- 
tion has  been  guilty  of  numerous  delays,  of  the 


BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS   149 

appointment  and  retention  of  inefficient  men, 
and  of  many  kinds  of  half-heartedness  in  wag- 
ing the  war.  These  have  all  caused  much 
damage.  But  the  prime  cause  was  the  failure 
to  prepare  in  advance. 

The  attitude  of  the  War  Department  during 
the  first  months  of  the  war  was  shown  by  the 
remark  of  one  of  the  high  officials  to  the  effect 
that  the  delay  of  a  few  months  was  "a  per- 
fectly endurable  delay."  This  remark  was 
made  with  all  the  complacency  of  the  butter- 
fly on  the  fence  to  the  toad  under  the  harrow. 
Others  paid  with  their  blood  for  our  delay. 
The  German  submarine  note  came  on  January 
31,  1917;  and  within  the  next  two  months  an 
alert  and  efficient  War  Department  would 
have  had  every  particle  of  its  programme 
minutely  mapped  out  and  well  on  the  way  to 
execution.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  nothing  was 
really  begun  until  late  in  August.  Six  months 
can  be  treated  as  "a  perfectly  endurable  de- 
lay" only  if  we  are  content  to  accept  the  speed 
standards  in  war  of  Tiglath-Pileser  and  Pharaoh 
Nechoh.  But  the  United  States  cannot  afford 
to  accept  the  war  speed  standards  of  the 
seventh  century  B.  C,  instead  of  those  of  the 


ISO       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

twentieth  century,  A.  D.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  use  of  trying  to  justify  or  excuse 
broomstick  preparedness. 

I  have  before  me  a  letter  from  a  line  major 
of  Marines,  describing  the  terrible  fighting  in 
which  the  Marines  took  part  last  July.  I  quote 
the  following  sentences: 

The  German  planes  were  thick  in  the  air;  they 
were  in  groups  of  from  three  to  twenty.  They 
would  look  us  over  and  then  we  would  soon  get  a 
pounding  from  their  bombs.  I  heard  men  cussing 
as  to  where  our  $1,000,000,000  worth  of  planes 
were.     We  did  not  see  them. 

I  also  have  before  me  a  letter  from  an  avia- 
tion major,  written  from  another  part  of  the 
front  two  months  later,  in  the  beginning  of  Sep- 
tember.   It  runs  in  part  as  follows: 

We  still  keep  wondering  when  we  are  going  to 
see  the  results  of  America's  quantity  efforts  in  avia- 
tion. Things  are  much  better  here  now,  but  it 
is  entirely  thanks  to  the  French.  The  Liberty 
engine  has  not  begun  to  show  up  in  quantity  yety 
at  any  rate  at  the  front. 

Every  American  worth  his  salt  feels  exul- 
tant pride  in  the  splendid  courage  and  high  effi- 


BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS   151 

ciency  of  our  soldiers  in  France.  From  General 
Pershing  down  they  have  made  our  country, 
and  us  who  dwell  therein,  forever  their  debtors. 

It  is  well  to  pay  these  men  the  homage  of 
words,  but  what  really  counts  is  the  homage  of 
deeds.  It  is  a  dreadful  thing  to  send  our  fine 
and  gallant  boys  to  battle,  and  yet  to  deny 
them  the  formidable  weapons  and  machines  of 
war,  the  lack  of  which  must  be  paid  for  by  pour- 
ing out  their  blood  Hke  water. 

As  a  nation  we  cannot  be  acquitted  of  this 
wrong  to  our  fighting  men  whom  we  have  sent 
to  the  front.  No  finer  fighting  men  were  ever 
known,  and  their  deeds  are  deeds  of  deathless 
honor.  But  our  government,  by  its  failure  to 
prepare  in  advance  and  by  its  delay,  waste,  and 
mismanagement  after  the  war  began,  has  made 
a  record  that  is  not  pleasant  for  Americans  to 
contemplate.  Let  our  people  never  forget 
that  if  we  had  chosen  to  prepare  in  advance 
we  would  probably  have  ended  the  war  in  ninety 
days  after  we  entered  it  in  1917;  and  that  if 
when  General  Leonard  Wood  returned  from 
France  at  the  close  of  last  winter  the  adminis- 
tration had  heeded  his  report  and  had  done 
as  he  then  advised  and  as  every  patriotic  man 


152       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

of  knowledge  and  insight  then  hoped,  we  would 
have  been  further  advanced  at  the  beginning 
of  the  summer  than  we  are  now  at  the  end  of 
the  fall.  Nine-tenths  of  wisdom  is  being  wise 
in  time. 

When,  on  February  3,  we  broke  off  diplomatic 
relations  with  Germany  the  war  really  began. 
From  that  moment  avoidable,  unwarranted 
delay  was  as  inexcusable  as  it  is  now.  The  day 
before  Mr.  Elon  Hooker  had  laid  before  the 
authorities  at  Washington  an  offer  to  turn  over 
his  entire  plant  to  the  service  of  the  govern- 
ment, this  being  the  plant  better  fitted  than  any 
other  in  the  United  States  to  undertake  the 
manufacture  of  war  gas  and  the  development 
of  new  and  more  formidable  kinds  of  gas  on  a 
gigantic  scale.  His  request  was  refused.  A 
year  elapsed  before  any  serious  effort  was  made 
to  undo  any  of  the  effects  of  the  error.  At  the 
same  time  we  had  the  means  for  building  enor- 
mous quantities  of  excellent  machine-guns. 
The  War  Department  refused  to  avail  itself  of 
the  opportunity  and  dallied  for  about  eighteen 
months  in  developing  a  new  type  of  gun,  leav- 
ing us  meanwhile  without  any.  We  dawdled  in 
similar  fashion  over  the  tanks.     We  have  not 


BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS   153 

yet  built  any  field-guns,  and  are  still  dependent 
upon  what  the  French  can  give  us.  It  is  nec- 
essary merely  to  refer  to  the  appalling  delay 
in  the  air  service  where  ^640,000,000  were  ap- 
propriated and  largely  expended  without  secur- 
ing any  tangible  result  whatever  on  the  field 
of  battle  until  we  had  been  at  war  nearly  a  year 
and  a  half. 

For  nearly  a  year  after  we  entered  the  war 
our  authorities  behaved  exactly  as  if  they  be- 
lieved that  if  they  delayed  long  enough  Eng- 
land and  France  would  win  the  victory  with- 
out us;  or  as  if  the  Russian  Bolshevists  would 
disintegrate  Germany;  or  as  if  in  some  other 
way,  by  some  streak  of  good  luck,  we  would 
be  able  to  win  the  war  without  bloodshed, 
without  any  effort  on  our  part.  In  the  ship- 
ping programme  and  the  manufacture  of  field- 
artillery,  in  the  air  programme,  in  the  machine- 
gun  programme,  in  the  tank  programme,  in 
the  gas  programme — in  short,  as  regards  every 
material  element  necessary  to  win  the  war 
with  the  least  loss  of  blood  among  the  fighting 
men — there  was  the  same  breakdown.  After  a 
year  of  war,  when  the  great  German  drive  be- 
gan, our  fighting  army  able  to  take  part  in  the 


154       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

active  work  at  the  front  was  actually  smaller 
than  that  of  Belgium.  In  the  next  six  months 
we  were  able  to  place  in  the  field  an  army 
respectable  in  numbers  and  admirable  in  qual- 
ity; and  we  were  able  to  do  this  only  because, 
in  view  of  the  breakdown  of  our  shipping  pro- 
gramme, the  British  furnished  their  ships,  so 
that  60  per  cent  of  the  tonnage  used  in  ferrying 
our  soldiers  across  was  British.  But  we  were 
able  to  furnish  only  the  men.  We  had  only  the 
field-artillery  the  French  furnished  us.  We 
got  uniforms  from  the  English.  We  did  not 
have  a  single  fighting-plane  of  American  make, 
and  naturally  the  French  did  not  give  us  their 
best  planes.  We  had  very  few  American  ma- 
chine-guns or  auto  rifles.  We  had  almost  no 
gas.  We  had  almost  no  tanks,  and  those  we 
did  have  were  furnished  by  our  allies.  We  now 
have  a  few  admirable  naval  guns,  admirably 
handled,  and  a  number  of  excellent  bombing 
airplanes  of  our  own  manufacture. 

The  Russo-Japanese  War  lasted  some  six- 
teen months.  During  this  time  the  Russian 
Government  was  rightly  esteemed  to  have  mis- 
managed matters.  But  the  breakdown  of  our 
government  for  the  first  sixteen  months  after 


BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS   155 

we  went  to  war  was  far  more  complete  than 
the  breakdown  of  the  Russian  Government 
when  opposed  to  Japan.  At  the  end  of  that 
time  we  had  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
fighting  men,  certainly  unsurpassed,  and  per- 
haps unequalled  in  the  world,  but  they  had 
practically  no  artillery,  tanks,  airplanes,  ma- 
chine-guns, or  gas  of  their  own.  They  were 
still  unprepared  to  act  as  an  army  by  them- 
selves. In  other  words,  they  would  have  been 
utterly  helpless  against  any  well-equipped 
modern  army.  After  sixteen  months  our  gov- 
ernment had  failed  to  meet  the  situation  even 
as  well  as  the  Russian  Government  had  met 
its  situation.  The  dijfFerence  was  that  Russia 
had  no  alHes,  whereas  our  allies  made  a  ram- 
part of  their  bodies  behind  which  we  slowly 
prepared. 

The  business  efficiency  of  our  people  Is  great. 
Its  man-power  is  great.  Its  resources  are  enor- 
mous. Had  the  administration,  with  an  eye 
single  to  our  country's  needs,  devoted  its  whole 
energy  to  speeding  up  the  war,  and  abandoned 
all  thought  of  politics  during  the  war,  the  peace 
of  overwhelming  victory  would  by  this  time 
have  been  won.     But  this  was  not  done.    Never 


156       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

before  in  our  history  has  the  administration 
in  power  during  a  war  drawn  party  Hnes  as 
sharply  as  in  the  present  war.  No  one  but  an 
active  partisan  adherent  of  the  administration 
has  been  given  any  position  of  the  sHghtest 
pohtical  responsibihty;  and  the  test  in  the  ap- 
pointment of  even  these,  as  estabhshed  by 
President  Wilson,  in  his  messages  concerning 
the  election  or  re-election  of  congressmen,  is 
loyalty  to  the  administration  rather  than  loy- 
alty to  the  country.  But  an  immense  number 
of  business  men,  without  distinction  of  party — 
Democrats  and  Repubhcans  alike,  men  like 
Hoover,  Ryan,  Stettinius,  Schwab,  and  Hur- 
ley— have  come  forward  and  rendered  invalu- 
able service  at  a  nominal  salary  of  ^i  a  year, 
or  something  of  the  kind.  Without  distinction 
of  party  our  best  men  have  gone  to  the  front 
to  fight — except  where,  as  in  the  case  of  Gen- 
eral Wood,  the  administration  refused  to  use 
them.  In  Congress  party  lines  have  been  abol- 
ished on  the  great  issues  connected  with  wag- 
ing the  war  ejfficiently.  The  Republicans,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  furnished  a  greater  percentage 
than  the  Democrats  of  the  support  needed  by 
the    President    on    the    most    important    war 


BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS   157 

measures.  Thanks  to  the  work  of  Congress, 
to  the  work  of  our  private  citizens,  and  above 
all  to  the  valor  of  our  soldiers,  we  have  been 
able  to  develop  some  portion  of  our  strength; 
and  although  we  are  not  at  this  time  one-quar- 
ter as  efficient  in  the  war  as  we  could  have 
been  if  our  leaders,  without  regard  to  politics, 
had  devoted  themselves  in  every  way  to  speed- 
ing up  the  war,  yet  even  the  use  of  this  small 
fraction  of  our  giant  strength  has  sufficed  to 
turn  the  scale. 

If  we  do  our  full  duty  even  now,  the  war 
may  be  over  very  soon.  But  it  may  continue 
for  a  long  time.  In  any  event,  let  our  people 
remember  that  every  disaster  and  every  delay 
is,  will  be,  and  has  been  due  to  our  people  per- 
mitting the  misconduct  of  the  men  in  high 
political  position  to  go  unrebuked.  If  peace 
comes  soon — and  there  should  be  no  peace  per- 
mitted except  the  peace  of  complete  victory, 
a  peace  secured  by  the  unconditional  surrender 
of  Germany — let  our  people  remember  that  the 
unfortunate  individuals  made  the  scapegoats 
for  our  numerous  breakdowns  were  not  really 
to  blame.  It  is  the  men  in  highest  position 
over  them  who  were  really  to  blame;  and  these 


158       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

men  were  most  heavily  to  blame  for  their  failure 
to  prepare  in  advance.  When  President  Wil- 
son, a  year  after  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitaniay 
appointed  Mr.  Baker  Secretary  of  War  he  ab- 
solutely insured  all  the  trouble  that  has  come 
from  the  breakdowns  in  our  war  programme. 
President  Wilson  has  said,  "We  waited  until 
every  fair-minded  citizen  of  our  peace-loving 
democracy  was  aware  that  peace  was  impos- 
sible before  we  reluctantly  began  to  prepare 
to  defend  ourselves";  and  Secretary  Baker  and 
Mr.  Creel,  loyally  supporting  their  chief,  have 
said  that  they  felt  "delight"  and  "pride"  in 
the  fact  that  "we  were  not  prepared."  The 
satisfaction  thus  expressed  and  felt  by  the  men 
responsible  for  our  failure  to  prepare  will  not 
be  shared  by  the  mothers,  the  widows,  and  the 
orphans  of  the  tens  of  thousands  of  gallant 
men  whose  deaths  have  been  due  and  will  be 
due  to  this  failure. 

If  there  is  any  lesson  which  this  war  ought 
to  have  taught  it  is  the  priceless  value  of  time. 
Our  delay  was  not  fatal  to  us,  merely  because 
our  allies  protected  us.  Now  we  have  begun 
to  develop  a  great  fighting  force.  No  nation 
has  finer  stuff  for  soldiers  than  America;  no 


BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS   159 

nation  has  greater  wealth;  probably  no  other 
nation  can  draw  on  a  population  of  such  energy, 
administrative  capacity,  and  inventive  resource- 
fulness. A  year  after  our  forced  entry  into 
the  war  we  began  to  become  a  ponderable  mili- 
tary element;  we  have  steadily  become  more 
and  more  formidable;  and  finally,  I  believe,  we 
shall  become  the  decisive  factor  in  the  war. 

Then  there  will  be  grave  danger  lest  our 
vanity  mislead  us  into  forgetfulness  of  our 
helplessness  for  the  first  year  and  a  half,  and 
if  so  we  shall  again  sink  back  into  a  condition 
of  utter  unpreparedness.  For  this  reason  let 
us  refuse  to  be  guilty  of  the  folly  of  keeping 
silent  as  to  the  facts  of  the  two  years  and  a 
half  preceding  and  of  the  year  and  a  half  suc- 
ceeding our  entry  into  the  war.  On  this  mat- 
ter at  least  it  is  necessary  to  live  up  to  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  former  desire  for  "pitiless  pub- 
Hcity." 

Next  time  we  may  not  find  allies  to  defend 
us.  Let  Uncle  Sam  prepare  to  defend  himself. 
Let  him  realize  from  the  experience  of  the  im- 
mediate past  that,  unless  he  prepares  long  in 
advance,  he  will  be  utterly  helpless  if  suddenly 
menaced  with  war  by  a  great  mihtary  nation. 


i6o       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

Broomstick  preparedness  is  of  value  only  from 
the  political  standpoint. 

Fine  words  will  never  save  us  from  a  foreign 
conqueror.  Only  deeds  will  save  us;  and  then 
only  if  we  prepare  for  these  deeds  in  advance. 

Brag  is  a  good  dog.     But  Holdfast  is  a  better. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  GOSPEL  OF  SPILT  MILK 

THE  gospel  as  preached  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  ago  "called  sinners  to  re- 
pentance." The  sinners  who  profited 
by  it  were  those  who  repented.  They  did  not 
jauntily  speak  of  their  sins  as  spilt  milk.  They 
recognized  themselves  as  sinners;  they  recog- 
nized the  need  of  repentance.  Unless  they 
met  these  three  conditions,  they  were  regarded 
as  hypocrites  (and  hypocrites  were  not  laughed 
at,  nor  excused,  but  scathingly  denounced).  If 
the  sinners  announced  that  they  were  proud 
of  their  sins  or  took  delight  in  them,  or  if  they 
excused  themselves  and  denied  their  short- 
comings, they  were  not  regarded  as  having 
repented  at  all  and  were  denied  all  fellowship 
with  those  who  had  seen  the  light. 

And  those  who  summoned  the  sinners  to  re- 
pent did  not  tell  them  not  to  cry  over  spilt 
milk.     On  the  contrary,  they  told  them  with 
emphasis  that  they  had  sinned,  and  that  there 
i6i 


i62       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

was  sore  need  of  repentance,  and  that  such 
sincere  repentance  for  the  past  was  the  surest 
way  to  strengthen  their  souls  against  future 
repetition  of  their  past  misconduct. 

The  present-day  chatter  against  speaking 
the  necessary  truth  about  our  past  govern- 
mental misconduct  is  apt  to  find  expression  in 
a  protest  against  "crying  over  spilt  milk." 
The  beneficiaries  of  the  chatter  noisily  an- 
nounce that  they  feel  "pride"  and  "delight" 
in  having  spilled  the  milk  in  the  past,  instead 
of  bending  their  energies  in  repentant  silence 
to  mopping  it  up  in  the  present. 

For  two  years  and  a  half  the  world  war 
raged  and  we  refused  to  prepare.  Germany 
trampled  Belgium  into  bloody  mire,  but  we 
refused  to  prepare.  She  sank  the  Lusitania 
and  murdered  our  people  wholesale  upon  the 
high  seas,  but  we  refused  to  prepare.  She 
dynamited  our  factories  at  home,  but  we  refused 
to  prepare.  Our  government  knew  all  about 
her  plots;  our  governmental  authorities  had 
full  knowledge  of  all  she  was  doing,  but  they 
kept  us  ignorant  and  neutral  and  refused  to 
prepare.  Inert,  timid,  absorbed  in  money-get- 
ting,   we    dulled    our    souls    with    sentimental 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  SPILT  MILK  163 

rhetoric  which  under  such  conditions  was  nau- 
seous. Our  leaders  refused  to  take  one  thought 
for  the  terrible  to-morrow  or  to  harden  a  single 
fibre  of  our  giant  but  flabby  strength.  We 
drifted  into  the  war  on  a  sea  of  fatuous  phrases 
and  fatuous  refusals  to  act.  And  then  for  a 
year  we  waged  the  war  with  irresolute  feeble- 
ness. Meanwhile  the  administration,  through 
Mr.  Baker,  through  Mr.  Creel,  through  the 
President  himself,  have  excused  or  denied  the 
shortcomings,  have  announced  that  they  re- 
garded them  with  pride  and  delight  and  have 
persevered  in  them  until  dragooned  out  of 
them  by  hostile  criticism.  Yet  with  these  facts 
staring  us  in  the  face,  there  are  still  persons 
who  regard  the  gospel  of  **not  crying  over  spilt 
milk"  as  an  improvement  upon  the  gospel  of 
calling  sinners  to  repentance. 

It  was  not  until  the  great  German  drive  in 
the  spring  of  1918  came  within  a  hand's  breadth 
of  wrecking  the  Allied  cause,  that  our  people 
began  to  wake  to  the  actual  facts,  and  that  the 
administration  began  seriously  to  try  to  per- 
form a  substantial  portion  of  its  duty.  By 
that  time  three  years  and  nine  months  had 
passed  since  the  great  war  began,   and  over 


i64      THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

a  year  had  passed  since  Germany  forced  us 
into  it. 

The  most  terrible  battle  of  the  whole  terrible 
war  was  raging,  a  battle  which  might  readily 
have  meant  the  winning  of  the  war  by  Ger- 
many. 

It  was  an  hour  of  awful  trial  and  suffering 
and  danger  for  our  war-worn  allies  who  in 
France  were  battling  for  us  no  less  than  for 
themselves.  If  shame  is  ever  more  dreadful 
than  suflfering,  then  it  was  a  no  less  terrible 
hour  for  our  country.  Our  allies  stood  with 
their  backs  to  the  wall  in  the  fight  for  freedom, 
and  America  looked  on.  The  free  nations  stood 
at  bay  in  the  cause  that  was  ours  no  less  than 
theirs;  and  after  over  a  year  of  war  the  army 
we  had  sent  to  their  aid  was  smaller  than  that 
of  poor,  heroic,  ruined  Belgium,  and  was  hardly 
more  than  a  twentieth  the  size  of  that  which 
gallant  and  impoverished  Italy  had  in  the  field. 
And  this  great,  wealthy  nation  of  ours  had  not 
yet  furnished  to  our  own  brave  troops  in  the 
field,  cannon  or  tanks  or  airplanes,  and  almost 
no  machine-guns,  save  those  which  we  had  ob- 
tained from  hard-pressed  France.  And  let  our 
people  remember  that  every  gun  or  tank  or  air- 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  SPILT  MILK  165 

plane  thus  made  for  us  by  hard-pressed  France 
was  left  unmade  for  hard-pressed  Italy. 

Our  few  gallant  fighting  men  overseas  had 
even  then  won  high  honor  for  themselves,  and 
had  made  all  other  Americans  forever  their 
debtors.  But  it  was  a  scandal  and  a  reproach  to 
this  nation  that  they  were  so  few  and  so  badly 
equipped.  If  in  this  mighty  battle  our  allies 
had  failed,  black  infamy  would  have  been  our 
portion,  because  of  the  delay  and  the  folly  and 
the  weakness  and  the  cold,  time-serving  timid- 
ity of  our  government,  to  which  this  failure 
would  have  been  primarily  due. 

Our  allies  did  not  fail.  They  staved  off 
defeat.  They  managed  to  hold  until  Pershing 
was  able  to  put  into  the  line  seven  or  eight 
divisions  sufficiently  trained  and  of  such  splen- 
did natural  worth  that  they  could  be  used  as 
shock  troops — although  even  then  these  troops 
could  fight  only  because  we  had  obtained  from 
our  allies  the  necessary  cannon,  airplanes,  tanks, 
and  machine-guns,  and  although  even  then  we 
could  not  put  in  separate  army  corps,  our 
troops  being  joined  in  larger  or  smaller  units 
with  the  French  or  English.  But  the  native 
quality  of  our  troops  was  such  that  they  were 


i66       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

a  factor  of  prime  importance  in  the  great 
counter-drive  which  Foch  then  began  and 
which  after  over  three  months  of  victory,  has 
forced  Germany  almost  to  her  own  borders  and 
made  her  start  her  peace  drive  to  avert  un- 
conditional surrender.  The  government  is 
now  really  endeavoring  to  send  men  across  the 
water  as  rapidly  as  possible.  It  is  now  en- 
deavoring to  speed  up  the  ship  programme.  It 
is  now  endeavoring  to  hurry  the  airplane  pro- 
gramme. It  is  employing  big  business  men 
and  apparently  is  giving  them  power.  None 
of  these  things  were  done  until  Senator  Cham- 
berlain's committee  in  the  teeth  of  the  violent 
opposition  of  the  administration,  forced  some 
efficiency  and  some  speed  into  the  work  of  war. 
Few  of  them  were  done  effectively  until  the 
German  drive  galvanized  the  administration 
into  action.  If  these  obvious  things  and  the 
other  obvious  things  like  them  had  been  en- 
ergetically begun  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  the 
American  army  would  now  be  in  Germany  as 
the  dominant  factor  in  the  war.  If  we  had  be- 
gun to  prepare  in  August,  1914,  the  war  would 
have  been  over  long  ago,  and  indeed  we  probably 
would  not  have  had  actually  to  fight  and  an 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  SPILT  MILK   167 

infinity  of  bloodshed  would  certainly  have  been 
spared.  Verily,  our  own  country  and  the  world 
at  large  have  paid,  are  paying,  and  will  pay  a 
heavy  price  for  the  milk  spilt  by  the  adminis- 
tration; and  the  heaviest  blame  rests  on  those 
false  leaders  of  public  thought  who  told  the 
people  not  to  cry  over  the  spilt  milk,  instead 
of  telling  them  to  call  the  sinners  to  repentance 
and  to  see  that  the  repentance  was  sincere 
and  effective. 

Let  the  sinners  cease  exulting  over  their  sins 
and  in  good  faith  bring  forth  fruits  meet  for 
repentance.  We  are  now  doing  what  we  ought 
to  have  done  over  a  year  and  a  half  ago.  We 
are  now  preparing  to  make  our  overseas  army 
next  spring  what  it  could  have  been  made  and 
ought  to  have  been  made  last  spring.  But  let 
us  not  forget  that  the  present  action  of  the 
administration  in  increasing  the  army  furnishes 
the  severest  condemnation  of  its  folly  last 
spring  in  refusing  then  to  do  what  it  is  now 
doing,  when  General  Wood  on  his  return  from 
France,  and  when  Lieuten ant-General  Young 
and  all  other  competent  advisers  insisted  upon 
the  need  of  instantly  starting  to  increase  our 
army  to   five  million  fighting  men   overseas. 


i68       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

To  prepare  along  every  line  for  a  three  years* 
war  offers  the  best  chance  of  shortening  it;  and 
if  it  lasts  three  years  such  preparation  will 
guarantee  us  against  the  necessity  a  year  hence, 
or  two  or  three  years  hence,  of  trying  to  cover 
up  failure  by  nervously  assuring  one  another 
that  we  need  not  cry  over  spilt  milk. 

If  those  responsible  for  our  failure,  if  those 
responsible  for  the  refusal  to  prepare  during 
the  two  and  a  half  years  in  which  we  were 
vouchsafed  such  warning  as  never  nation  pre- 
viously received,  if  those  responsible  for  the 
sluggish  feebleness  with  which  we  have  acted 
since  we  helplessly  drifted  into  the  war — if 
these  men  now  repented  of  the  cruel  wrong 
they  have  done  this  nation  and  mankind,  we 
could  afford  to  wrap  their  past  folly  and  evil- 
doing  in  the  kindly  mantle  of  oblivion. 

But  they  boast  of  their  foolishness,  they 
excuse  and  justify  it,  they  announce  that  they 
feel  pride  and  delight  in  contemplating  it. 
Therefore  it  was  for  us,  the  people,  to  bow  our 
heads  on  our  penitential  day;  for  we  were  lag- 
gards in  the  battle,  we  let  others  fight  in  our 
quarrel,  we  let  others  pay  with  their  shattered 
bodies  for  the  fire  in  their  burning  souls. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  SPILT  MILK  169 

The  trumpets  of  the  Lord  sounded  for  Arma- 
geddon, but  our  hearts  were  not  swift  to  an- 
swer nor  our  feet  jubilant;  coldly  we  at  home 
watched  others  die  that  we  might  live.  Our 
rulers  were  supple  and  adroit;  but  they  were 
not  mighty  of  soul.  They  showed  that  they 
would  not  lead  us,  and  would  even  stand  in 
front  only  if  we  forced  them  forward. 

Overseas  our  fighting  men,  by  their  valor 
and  their  suffering,  are  now  atoning  for  the 
manifold  failures  in  the  past  of  our  rulers  at 
home.  Now  at  last  we  can  hold  our  heads 
aloft,  because  these,  our  sons  and  brothers,  have 
won  immortal  honor,  and  have  established 
records  of  efficient  and  heroic  valor  which  give 
our  nation  the  same  right  which  the  Allied 
nations  already  had  to  cherish  forever  sorrowful 
but  glorious  memories  of  this  world  war.  But 
it  behooves  us  to  see  that  other  millions  of  our 
fighting  men  stand  beside  them,  and  that  they 
have  every  weapon  and  war  machine  necessary 
to  enable  them  to  win  the  war  with  the  least 
expenditure  of  their  gallant  blood.  Spilt  milk 
in  the  past  has  meant  spilt  blood  in  the  pres- 
ent. Spilt  milk  in  the  present  will  mean  more 
spilt  blood  in  the  future. 


170       THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

This  is  the  reason  why  we,  the  American 
people,  must  search  our  own  hearts  and  with 
unflinching  will  insist  that  from  now  on  not  a 
day,  not  an  hour  shall  be  wasted  until  our 
giant  but  soft  and  lazy  strength  is  hardened, 
until  we  ourselves  take  the  burden  from  the 
shoulders  of  others,  until  we  pay  whatever 
price  our  past  shortcomings  demand,  and  with 
heads  uplifted  and  spirit  undaunted  stride  for- 
ward to  the  great  goal  of  the  peace  of  victorious 
right. 


APPENDIX  A 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Most,  but  not  all,  of  the  material  herein  con- 
tained has  appeared  during  the  present  year  in  the 
Metropolitan  Magarine,  in  the  Kansas  City  Star, 
in  the  Philadelphia  North  American,  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  and  in  certain  speeches. 

Four  years  ago,  in  the  articles  which  soon  after- 
ward were  gathered  into  book  form  under  the  title 
of  "America  and  the  World  War,"  I  wrote: 

The  great  danger  to  peace,  so  far  as  this  country  is 
concerned,  arises  from  such  pacifists  as  those  who  have 
made  and  applauded  our  recent  all-inclusive  arbitration 
treaties.  .  .  .  These  persons  may  succeed  in  impressing 
foreign  nations  with  the  belief  that  they  represent  our 
people  ...  (if  so,  there  will  follow)  long-drawn  war.  .  .  . 
It  is  those  among  us  who  would  go  to  the  front  in  such 
event — as  .  .  .  my  four  sons  would  go — who  are  the  really 
far-sighted  and  earnest  friends  of  peace.  We  desire 
measures  taken  in  the  real  interest  of  peace,  because  we 
who  at  need  would  fight,  but  who  earnestly  hope  never 
to  be  forced  to  fight,  have  most  at  stake  in  keeping  peace. 
...  In  such  a  war  the  prime  fact  to  be  remembered  is 
that  the  men  really  responsible  for  it  would  not  be  those 
who  would  pay  die  penalty.  The  ultrapacifists  are  rarely 
men  who  go  to  battle.  Their  fault  or  their  folly  would 
be  expiated  by  the  blood  of  countless  thousands  of  plain 
and  decent  American  citizens. 
171 


172  APPENDIX 

Events  have  made  good  precisely  what  I  thus 
wrote.  The  leading  pacifists  of  four  years  ago,  and 
their  sons  and  sons-in-law,  are  rarely  to  be  found 
in  the  fighting  line  at  the  front.  It  is  the  men  who 
then  advocated  preparedness  who  now  pay  for  the 
failure  to  prepare  and  for  the  folly  of  some  of  our 
leaders,  and  the  political  unscrupulousness  of  others. 


APPENDIX  B 

DISPOSITION  OF  THE  NOBEL  PEACE 
PRIZE  FUND 

August  22nd,  191 8. 
My  dear  Congressman  Gallivan: 

In  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  Congres- 
sional resolution  introduced  by  you,  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  and  by  Senator  Johnson,  acting 
for  Senator  Williams,  in  the  Senate,  Secretary  Red- 
field  for  the  Commission  returned  to  me  the  Nobel 
Peace  Prize  Fund.  The  securities  when  sold,  plus 
the  cash  in  hand,  amounted  to  $45,482.83.  I  have 
disposed  of  this  sum  as  follows: 

To  the  American  Red  Cross,  through  the  Trea- 
surer, Mr,  John  Skelton  Williams $6,900.00 

The  American  Red  Cross,  and  possibly  some 
other  war  charities  or  war  activities  will 
receive  further  sums  of  money  from  my 
royalties  on  certain  scenarios  of  motion 
pictures  to  be  shortly  produced  by  the 
McClure  Company;  all  the  royalties  I  re- 
ceive from  the  pictures  in  question  during 
the  period  of  the  war  will  be  thus  used. 

To  Mrs.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Jr.,  now  working 

in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  in  France 5,000.00 

As  Mrs.  Roosevelt  is  working  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 

173 


174  APPENDIX 

I  suppose  that  some  or  most  of  the  money 
will  be  used  in  connection  therewith;  but 
the  disposal  is  absolutely  at  her  discretion. 

To  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  Na- 
tional War  Work  Council,  through  the  trea- 
surer, Mr.  Cleveland  H.  Dodge 4,000.00 

To  the  Knights  of  Columbus  War  Activities 
Committee,  through  the  treasurer,  Mr.  Wil- 
liam J.  Mulligan 4,000.00 

To  the  Jewish  Welfare  Board,  for  War  Activities, 

through  the  treasurer,  Mr.  Walter  E.  Sachs .  .   4,000.00 

To  the  Salvation  Army  War  Fund,   treasurer 

Mr.  G.  S.  Reinhardsen     4,000.00 

I  have  sent  this  check  through  Major  Atkins, 
who  has  been  doing  admirable  work  in  the 
battalion  of  the  26th  Infantry  in  which  my 
sons  Theodore  Jr.  and  Archibald  have  been 
serving. 

To  the  Young  Women's  Christian  Association 
War  Work   Council,   Colored,   through   Mrs. 

Henry  P.  Davison 4,000.00 

I  have  asked  that  Miss  Eva  Bolles  be  con- 
sulted in  the  disbursal  of  this  item.  My 
wife  and  I  were  very  much  struck  with  the 
work  of  Miss  Bolles  in  connection  with  the 
Colored  Hostess  House  at  Camp  Upton; 
and  I  have  requested  that  the  money  be  used 
for  the  hostess  houses  for  colored  troops  and 
in  work  among  colored  women  and  girls  in 
and  about  the  camps  and  cantonments. 


APPENDIX  I7S 

To  Miss  Emily  Tyler  Carow,  at  Porto  Maurizo, 
Italy,  for  work  in  connection  with  the  Italian 

Red  Cross 1,000.00 

I  send  this  sum  merely  as  a  token  of  my  ad- 
miration of  the  high  gallantry  and  efficiency 
of  Italy's  action. 

To  Langdon  Warner,  acting  American  Vice- 
Consul  at  Harbin  and  Vladivostock,  for  the 
Czecho-Slovaks,  the  extraordinary  nature  of 
whose  great  and  heroic  feat  is  literally  unparal- 
leled, so  far  as  I  know  in  ancient  or  modern 

warfare i,ooo.oo 

In  this  case,  as  in  all  the  cases  that  follow,  the 
value  of  the  money  contribution  amounts 
to  so  little  that  it  seems  hardly  worth  send- 
ing; but  the  money  was  given  to  me  by  the 
Nobel  Peace  Prize  Committee  for  my  action 
in  connection  with  the  Peace  of  Portsmouth, 
which  closed  the  Russo-Japanese  War;  and 
I  wish  to  use  it  in  part  to  show  my  admira- 
tion for  the  high  heroism  of  the  peoples  who 
have  done  most  and  suffered  most  in  this 
great  war  to  secure  liberty  for  all  those  na- 
tions, big  or  little,  which  lead  self-respecting 
and  orderly  lives,  and  act  justly  and  fairly 
by  others. 

To  Madame  Major  Botchkareva,  for  use  as  she 
deems  wise,  as  a  token  of  my  respect  for  those 
Russians  who  have  refused  to  follow  the  Bol- 
shevists in  their  betrayal  to  Germany  of  Rus- 
sia, of  the  Allies,  and  of  the  cause  of  liberty 
throughout  the  world 1,000.00 

To  Herbert  C.  Hoover,  for  use  in  Belgium 1,000.00 


176  APPENDIX 

To  the  Belgian  Minister,  for  use  among  the  Bel- 
gian refugees  in  Holland l,OOO.oo 

In  Holland  the  burden  of  caring  for  the  Bel- 
gian victims  of  the  German  horror  has  been 
very  heavy;  I  suggest,  but  do  not  direct, 
that  the  money  be  expended  through  the 
committee  to  which  Miss  Van  der  Flier  be- 
longs. 

To  the  Servian  Minister,  for  the  Servian  sufferers  1,000.00 

To  Paul  Shimmon  for  use  among  the  Armenians 

and  Assyrian  Christians 1,000.00 

I  send  this  through  Mr.  Shimmon  because  so 
far  as  I  know  he  has  never  sought  to  excuse 
or  justify  what  I  regard  as  our  inexcusable 
dereliction  in  duty  in  having  failed  to  de- 
clare war  on  Turkey,  and  therefore  in  having 
failed  to  play  a  manly  part  in  the  effort  per- 
manently to  remedy  the  hideous  wrongs  of 
the  subjects  of  the  Turk  in  the  only  really 
effective  way,  by  destroying  Turkish  rule. 

To  M.  L.  Mirman,  Prefect  of  Meurthe-et-Moselle, 
the  lamentable  sufferings  of  the  people  of 
whose  prefecture  happen  to  have  been  brought 
intimately  before  us 500.00 

To  Mrs.  Mary   Cadwalader  Jones,  for  further 

similar  work  in  France 500.00 

To  Count  Ishii,  the  Japanese  Ambassador,  for 

the  Japanese  Red  Cross 500.00 

The  Japanese  Red  Cross,  like  the  American 
Red  Cross,  has  raised  large  sums  of  money 
for  use  in  the  Allied  countries;   I  send  this 


APPENDIX  177 

merely  as  a  very  slight  token  of  my  admira- 
tion for  the  part  the  Japanese  people  have 
taken  in  this  war. 

To  Leslie  M.  Tarlton,  Nairobi,  for  any  war  ac- 
tivity, or  war  charity  in  Uganda  or  British 

East  Africa 500.00 

I  was  in  Africa  with  Mr.  Tarlton,  who  is  an 
Australian.  I  send  this  merely  as  a  token 
of  my  admiration  of  what  has  been  done  in 
this  war  by  the  Canadians,  Australians,  New 
Zealanders  and  Africanders,  both  of  Boer 
and  British  blood. 

To  Mrs.  Stewart  Jobson  for  reconstruction  work 

for  wounded  soldiers  in  England 500.00 

To  Judge  Joseph   L.   Nunan,   of  Georgetown, 
Demerara,    for    wounded    soldiers    and    their 

families  in  Ireland 500.OO 

I  send  this  through  Mr.  Nunan  because  he  be- 
lieves in  Home  Rule  within  the  Empire,  and 
stands  uncompromisingly  for  prosecuting  the 
war  against  Germany  with  all  possible  effi- 
ciency until  the  enemy  is  completely  over- 
thrown. 

To  Henry  P.  Davison,  to  be  used  when  possible 

for  the  Roumanians 500.OO 

To  Henry  P.  Davison,  to  be  used  when  possible 

for  the  Montenegrins 500.00 

To  Robert  M.  Thompson,  for  the  Comforts  Com- 
mittee of  the  Navy  League 500.00 


178  APPENDIX 

To  Speaker  Champ  Clark,  for  war  activities  or 

charities 500.OO 

I  suggest  but  do  not  stipulate  that  this  be  used 
in  Missouri. 

To  Mrs.  James  A.  Gallivan,  for  war  activities 

or  charities 500.00 

I  suggest  but  do  not  stipulate  that  this  be 

used  in  Mrs.  Gallivan's  own  neighborhood 

in  Massachusetts. 

To  Mrs.  John  A.  Williams,  for  similar  use 500.00 

I  suggest  but  do  not  stipulate  that  this  be 
used  in  Mississippi. 

To  Mrs.  Hiram  Johnson  for  similar  use 500.000 

I  suggest  but  do  not  stipulate  that  this  be 
used  in  California. 

For  cabling  and  other  expenses  in  connection 

therewith: 82.83 


Total $45,482.83 

I  wish  to  express  my  obligations  to  Secretary 
Redfield  and  his  associates  for  the  promptness  with 
which  they  acted. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 
Hon.  James  A.  Gallivan, 
House  of  Representatives, 
Washington,  D.  C. 


APPENDIX  C 
PUT  THE  BLAME  WHERE  IT  BELONGS 

Under  the  above  heading  I  wrote  to  Senator 
Poindexter  concerning  the  misconduct  of  the  ad- 
ministration— especially  through  the  action  of 
Messrs.  Burleson  and  Creel,  and  the  handling  of 
the  Department  of  Justice  and  the  War  Depart- 
ment— in  failing  to  act  efficiently  against  German 
spies  and  pro-German  traitors  here  at  home,  and 
in  failing  to  proceed  against  powerful  newspapers 
which  supported  Mr.  Wilson  personally  although 
conducting  an  anti-ally  or  anti-war,  and  therefore 
anti-American  and  pro-German  propaganda,  while 
mercilessly  interfering  with  the  freedom  of  speech 
and  with  the  freedom  of  the  press  as  regards  non- 
seditious  and  loyal  papers  which  were  politically  op- 
posed to  the  administration  and  which  the  adminis- 
tration desired  to  browbeat.  This  letter  was  put 
into  the  record  by  Senator  Poindexter  and  has 
been  reproduced  as  an  appendix  in  Mr.  James  A.  B. 
Scherer's  admirable  volume  entitled  "The  Nation 
at  War." 

I  showed  that  the  great  and  powerful  Hearst 
newspapers  had  been  left  unmolested  by  the  ad- 
ministration (by  administration  I  mean  President 
Wilson  and  those  intimate  high  subordinates  and 

179 


i8o  APPENDIX 

advisers  of  his  who  are  his  especial  agents  and  for 
whose  acts  he  must  accept  full  responsibility),  and 
had  been  helped  by  the  administration  through 
action  which  was  not  merely  of  political  but  of 
financial  consequence  to  them;  whereas  weak 
papers  and  papers  to  which  the  administration 
objected  on  political  grounds  had  been  bullied  and 
interfered  with  and  even  practically  suppressed.  I 
gave  the  facts  in  these  and  other  cases  in  detail; 
and  the  administration  never  ventured  to  question 
these  facts — because  the  members  of  the  adminis- 
tration well  knew  that  I  was  telling  the  absolute 
truth,  and  that  no  one  could  truthfully  or  success- 
fully dispute  what  I  had  said. 

The  simple  truth  is  that  never  in  our  history 
has  any  other  administration  during  a  great  war 
played  politics  of  the  narrowest  personal  and  par- 
tisan type  as  President  Wilson  has  done;  and  one 
of  the  features  of  this  effort  has  been  the  careful 
and  studied  effort  to  mislead  and  misinform  the 
public  through  information  sedulously  and  copiously 
furnished  them  by  government  officials.  An  even 
worse  feature  has  been  the  largely  successful  effort 
to  break  down  freedom  of  speech  and  the  freedom 
of  the  press  by  government  action.  Much  of  this 
action  has  been  taken  under  the  guise  of  attacking 
disloyalty;  but  it  has  represented  action,  not  against 
those  who  were  disloyal  to  the  nation,  but  against 
those  who  disagreed  with  or  criticised  the  President 
for  failure  in  the  performance  of  duty  to  the  na- 


APPENDIX  i8i 

tion.  The  action  of  the  government  against  real 
traitors,  and  against  German  spies  and  agents,  has 
been  singularly  weak  and  ineffective.  The  chief 
of  the  Secret  Service  said  that  there  were  a  quarter 
of  a  million  German  spies  in  this  country.  Senator 
Overmann  put  the  number  at  a  larger  figure;  but 
not  one  has  been  shot  or  hung,  and  relatively  few 
have  been  interfered  with  in  any  way.  The  real 
vigor  of  the  administration  has  been  directed  against 
honest  critics  who  have  endeavored  to  force  it  to 
speed  up  the  war  and  to  act  with  prompt  efficiency 
against  Germany. 

In  my  letter  to  Senator  Poindexter  I  quoted  an 
article  I  had  written  which  appeared  in  the  Metro- 
politan Magazine  for  April,  191 8.  It  runs  as  fol- 
lows: 

LINCOLN  AND  FREE  SPEECH 

Patriotism  means  to  stand  by  the  country.  It  does 
not  mean  to  stand  by  the  President  or  any  other  public 
official  save  exactly  to  the  degree  in  which  he  himself 
stands  by  the  country.  It  is  patriotic  to  support  him  in 
so  far  as  he  efficiently  serves  the  country.  It  is  unpatriotic 
not  to  oppose  him  to  the  exact  extent  that  by  inefficiency 
or  otherwise  he  fails  in  his  duty  to  stand  by  the  country. 
In  either  event,  it  is  unpatriotic  not  to  tell  the  truth — 
whether  about  the  President  or  about  any  one  else — save 
in  the  rare  cases  where  this  would  make  known  to  the 
enemy  information  of  military  value  which  would  other- 
wise be  unknown  to  him. 

Sedition,  in  the  legal  sense,  means  to  betray  the  govern- 
ment, to  give  aid  and  comfort  to  the  enemy,  or  to  counsel 


i82  APPENDIX 

resistance  to  the  laws  or  to  measures  of  government  having 
the  force  of  law.  There  can  be  conduct  morally  as  bad 
as  legal  sedition  which  yet  may  not  be  violation  of  law. 
The  President — any  President — can  by  speech  or  action 
(by  advocating  an  improper  peace  or  improper  submis- 
sion to  national  wrong)  give  aid  and  comfort  to  the  public 
enemy  as  no  one  else  in  the  land  can  do,  and  yet  his  con- 
duct, however  damaging  to  the  country,  is  not  seditious; 
and  although  if  public  sentiment  is  sufficiently  aroused 
he  can  be  impeached,  such  course  is  practically  impos- 
sible. 

One  form  of  servility  consists  in  a  slavish  attitude — 
of  the  kind  incompatible  with  self-respecting  manliness — 
toward  any  person  who  is  powerful  by  reason  of  his  office 
or  position.  Servility  may  be  shown  by  a  public  servant 
toward  the  profiteering  head  of  a  large  corporation,  or 
toward  the  anti-American  head  of  a  big  labor  organiza- 
tion. It  may  also  be  shown  in  peculiarly  noxious  and  un- 
American  form  by  confounding  the  President  or  any  other 
official  with  the  country  and  shrieking  "stand  by  the 
President,"  without  regard  to  whether,  by  so  acting,  we 
do  or  do  not  stand  by  the  country. 

A  distinguished  Federal  judge  recently  wrote  me  as 
follows : 

"Last  November  it  seemed  as  if  the  American  people 
were  going  to  be  converted  into  a  hallelujah  chorus,  whose 
only  function  in  government  should  be  to  shout  'Halle- 
lujah!' 'Hallelujah!'  for  everything  that  the  Adminis- 
tration did  or  failed  to  do.  Any  one  who  did  not  join 
that  chorus  was  liable  to  imprisonment  for  treason  or 
sedition. 

"I  hope  that  we  shall  soon  have  recovered  our  sense 
as  well  as  our  liberty. 

"The  authors  of  the  first  amendment  to  the  Federal 
Constitution  guaranteeing  the  right  of  assembly  and  of 
freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press  did  not  thus  safeguard 


APPENDIX  183 

those  rights  for  the  sake  alone  of  persons  who  were  to 
enjoy  them,  but  even  more  because  they  knew  that  the 
RepubHc  which  they  were  founding  could  not  be  worked 
on  any  other  basis.  Since  Marshall  tried  Burr  for  treason 
it  has  been  clear  that  that  crime  cannot  be  committed 
by  words,  unless  one  acts  as  a  spy,  or  gives  advice  to  the 
enemy  of  military  or  naval  operations.  It  cannot  be  com- 
mitted by  statements  reflecting  upon  officers  or  measures 
of  government. 

"Sedition  is  different.  Any  one  who  directly  advises 
or  counsels  resistance  to  measures  of  government  is  guilty 
of  sedition.  That,  however,  ought  to  be  clearly  distin- 
guished from  discussion  of  the  wisdom  or  folly  of  measures 
of  government,  or  the  honesty  or  competency  of  public 
officers.  That  is  not  sedition.  It  is  within  the  protection 
of  the  first  amendment.  The  electorate  cannot  be  quali- 
fied to  perform  its  duty  in  removing  incompetent  officers 
and  securing  the  repeal  of  unwise  laws  unless  those  ques- 
tions may  be  freely  discussed. 

"The  right  to  say  wise  things  necessarily  implies  the 
right  to  say  foolish  things.  The  answer  to  foolish  speech 
is  wise  speech  and  not  force.  The  Republic  is  founded 
upon  the  faith  that  if  the  American  people  are  permitted 
freely  to  hear  foolish  and  wise  speech,  a  majority  will 
choose  the  wise.  If  that  faith  is  not  justified  the  Republic 
is  based  on  sand.  John  Milton  said  it  all  in  his  defense 
of  freedom  of  the  press:  'Let  truth  and  error  grapple. 
Who  ever  knew  truth  to  be  beaten  in  a  fair  fight?'" 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  in  Congress  while  Polk  was  Presi- 
dent, during  the  Mexican  War.  The  following  extracts 
from  his  speeches,  during  war-time,  about  the  then  Presi- 
dent ought  to  be  illuminating  to  those  persons  who  do 
not  understand  that  one  of  the  highest  and  most  patriotic 
duties  to  be  performed  in  his  country  at  this  time  is  to 
tell  the  truth  whenever  it  becomes  necessary  in  order 
to  force  our  government  to  speed  up  the  war.     It  would, 


i84  APPENDIX 

for  example,  be  our  highest  duty  to  tell  it  if  at  any  time 
we  became  convinced  that  only  thereby  could  we  shame 
our  leaders  out  of  hypocrisy  and  prevent  the  betrayal 
of  human  rights  by  peace  talk  of  the  kind  which  bewilders 
and  deceives  plain  people. 

These  quotations  can  be  found  on  pages  lOO  to  146  of 
volume  I  of  "Lincoln's  Complete  Works,"  by  Nicolay 
and  Hay. 

In  a  speech  on  January  12,  1848,  Lincoln  justified  him- 
self for  voting  in  favor  of  a  resolution  censuring  the  Presi- 
dent for  his  action  prior  to  and  during  the  war  (which 
was  still  going  on).  He  examines  the  President's  official 
message  of  justification  and  says,  "that,  taking  for  true 
all  the  President  states  as  facts,  he  falls  far  short  of  prov- 
ing his  justification,  and  that  the  President  would  have 
gone  further  with  his  proof  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  small 
matter  that  the  truth  would  not  permit  him."  He  says 
that  part  of  the  message  "is  from  beginning  to  end  the 
sheerest  deception."  He  then  asks  the  President  to  an- 
swer certain  questions,  and  says,  "Let  him  answer  fully, 
fairly,  and  candidly.  Let  him  answer  with  facts  and  not 
with  arguments.  Let  him  remember  that  he  sits  where 
Washington  sat,  and  so  remembering,  let  him  answer  as 
Washington  would  answer.  Let  him  attempt  no  evasion, 
no  equivocation."  In  other  words,  Lincoln  says  that  he 
does  not  wish  rhetoric  or  fine  phrases  or  glittering  state- 
ments that  contradict  one  another  and  each  of  which  has 
to  be  explained  with  a  separate  key  or  adroit  and  subtle 
special  pleading  and  constant  reversal  of  positions  pre- 
viously held,  but  straightforward  and  consistent  adherence 
to  the  truth.  He  continues  that  he  "more  than  suspects" 
that  the  President  "is  deeply  conscious  of  being  in  the 
wrong;  that  he  feels  that"  innocent  blood  "is  crying  to 
heaven  against  him";  that  one  of  the  best  generals  had 
"been  driven  into  disfavor,  if  not  disgrace,  by  the  Presi- 
dent"  for   insisting   upon   speaking   unpalatable   truths 


APPENDIX  185 

about  the  length  of  time  the  war  would  take  (and  there- 
fore the  need  of  full  preparedness);  and  ends  by  saying 
that  the  army  has  done  admirably,  but  that  the  President 
has  bungled  his  work  and  "knows  not  where  he  is.  He 
is  a  bewildered,  confounded,  and  miserably  perplexed 
man.  God  grant  he  may  be  able  to  show  there  is  not  some- 
thing about  his  conscience  more  painful  than  all  his  men- 
tal perplexity." 

Remember  that  this  is  Lincoln  speaking,  in  war-time, 
of  the  President.  The  general  verdict  of  history  has  justi- 
fied him.  But  it  is  impossible  to  justify  him  and  not 
heartily  to  condemn  the  persons  who  in  our  time  endeavor 
to  suppress  truth  telling  of  a  far  less  emphatic  type  than 
Lincoln's. 

Lincoln  had  to  deal  with  various  critics  of  the  "stand 
by  the  President"  type.  To  one  he  answers  that  "the 
only  alternative  is  to  tell  the  truth  or  to  lie,"  and  that 
he  would  not  "skulk"  on  such  a  question.  He  explains 
that  the  President's  supporters  "are  untiring  in  their 
efforts  to  make  the  impression  that  all  who  vote  supplies 
or  take  part  in  the  war  do  of  necessity  approve  the  Presi- 
dent's conduct,"  but  that  he  (Lincoln)  and  his  associates 
sharply  distinguished  between  the  two  and  voted  supplies 
and  men  but  "denounced  the  President's  conduct"  and 
"condemned  the  administration."  He  stated  that  to  give 
the  President  the  power  demanded  for  him  by  certain  peo- 
ple would  "place  the  President  where  kings  have  always 
stood."  In  touching  on  what  we  should  now  speak  of  as 
rhetoric,  he  says,  "The  honest  laborer  digs  coal  at  about 
seventy  cents  a  day,  while  the  President  digs  abstrac- 
tions at  about  seventy  dollars  a  day.  The  coal  is  clearly 
worth  more  than  the  abstractions,  and  yet  what  a  mon- 
strous inequality  in  the  price  !"  He  emphatically  protests 
against  permitting  the  President  "to  take  the  whole  of 
legislation  into  his  hands" — surely  a  statement  applying 
exactly  to  the  present  situation.    To  the  President's  servile 


i86  APPENDIX 

party  supporters  he  makes  a  distinction  which  also  readily 
applies  at  the  present  day,  "The  distinction  between  the 
cause  of  the  President  .  .  .  and  the  cause  of  the  coun- 
try .  .  .  you  cannot  perceive.  To  you  the  President 
and  the  country  seem  to  be  all  one.  .  .  .  We  see  the 
distinction  clearly  enough." 

This  last  statement  was  the  crux  of  the  matter  then 
and  is  the  crux  of  the  matter  now.  We  hold  that  our 
loyalty  is  due  solely  to  the  American  Republic,  and  to 
all  our  public  servants  exactly  in  proportion  as  they  ef- 
ficiently and  faithfully  serve  the  Republic.  Our  oppo- 
nents, in  flat  contradiction  of  Lincoln's  position,  hold 
that  our  loyalty  is  due  to  the  President,  not  the  coun- 
try; to  one  man,  the  servant  of  the  people,  instead  of 
to  the  people  themselves.  In  practice  they  adopt  the 
fetishism  of  all  believers  in  absolutism,  for  every  man 
who  parrots  the  cry  of  "stand  by  the  President"  without 
adding  the  proviso  "so  far  as  he  serves  the  Republic"  takes 
an  attitude  as  essentially  unmanly  as  that  of  any  Stuart 
royalist  who  championed  the  doctrine  that  the  king  could 
do  no  wrong.  No  self-respecting  and  intelligent  freeman 
can  take  such  an  attitude. 

The  Wisconsin  Legislature  has  just  set  forth  the  proper 
American  doctrine,  as  follows: 

"The  people  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin  always  have 
stood  and  always  will  stand  squarely  behind  the  National 
Government  in  all  things  which  are  essential  to  bring 
the  present  war  to  a  successful  end,  and  we  condemn  Sena- 
tor Robert  La  Follette  and  all  others  who  have  failed  to 
see  the  righteousness  of  our  Nation's  cause,  who  have 
failed  to  support  our  Government  in  matters  vital  to  the 
winning  of  the  war,  and  we  denounce  any  attitude  or  ut- 
terance of  theirs  which  has  tended  to  incite  sedition  among 
the  people  of  our  country." 

In  view  of  the  recent  attitude  of  the  administration  as 
expressed  through  the  Attorney-General  and  Postmaster- 


APPENDIX  187 

General  I  commend  to  its  attention  the  utterances  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  in  1848  and  of  the  Wisconsin  Legisla- 
ture in  191 8.  The  administration's  warfare  against  Ger- 
man spies  and  American  traitors  has  been  feeble.  The 
government  has  achieved  far  less  in  this  direction  than 
has  been  achieved  by  a  few  of  our  newspapers  and  by 
various  private  individuals.  This  failure  is  aggravated 
by  such  action  as  was  threatened  against  the  Metro- 
politan Magazine.  The  Metropolitan — and  the  present 
writer — have  stood  and  will  continue  to  stand,  "squarely 
behind  the  National  Government  in  all  things  which 
are  essential  to  bring  the  present  war  to  a  successful 
end"  and  to  support  "the  righteousness  of  the  Nation's 
cause."  We  will  stand  behind  the  country  at  every 
point,  and  we  will  at  every  point  either  support  or  oppose 
the  administration  precisely  in  proportion  as  it  does  or 
does  not  with  efficiency  and  single-minded  devotion  serve 
the  country. 

From  this  position  we  will  not  be  driven  by  any  abuse 
of  power  or  by  any  effort  to  make  us  not  the  loyal  servants 
of  the  American  people,  but  the  cringing  tools  of  a  man 
who  at  the  moment  has  power. 

The  administration  has  in  some  of  its  actions  on  vital 
points  shown  great  inefficiency  (as  proved  by  Senator 
Chamberlain's  committee)  and  on  other  points  has  been 
guilty  of  conduct  toward  certain  peoples  wholly  incon- 
sistent with  its  conduct  toward  other  peoples  and  wholly 
inconsistent  with  its  public  professions  as  regards  all  in- 
ternational conduct.  It  cannot  meet  these  accusations, 
for  they  are  truthful,  and  to  try  to  suppress  the  truth 
by  preventing  the  circulation  of  the  Metropolitan  Maga- 
zine is  as  high-handed  a  defiance  of  liberty  and  justice 
as  anything  done  by  the  Hohenzollerns  or  the  Romanoffs. 
Such  action  is  intolerable.  Contrast  the  leniency  shown 
by  the  government  toward  the  grossest  offenses  against 
the  nation  with  its  eagerness  to  assail  any  one  who  tells 


i88  APPENDIX 

unpleasant  truths  about  the  administration.  The  Hearst 
papers  play  the  German  game  when  they  oppose  the  war, 
assail  our  Allies,  and  clamor  for  an  inconclusive  peace, 
and  they  play  the  German  game  when  they  assail  the  men 
who  truthfully  point  out  the  shortcomings  which,  unless 
corrected,  will  redound  to  Germany's  advantage  and 
our  terrible  disadvantage.  But  the  administration  has 
taken  no  action  against  the  Hearst  papers.  The  Metro- 
politan Magazine  has  supported  the  war,  has  championed 
every  measure  to  speed  up  the  war  and  to  make  our 
strength  effective,  and  has  stood  against  every  proposal 
for  a  peace  without  victory.  But  the  administration  acts 
against  the  magazine  that  in  straightforward  American 
fashion  has  championed  the  war.  Such  discrimination 
is  not  compatible  with  either  honesty  or  patriotism.  It 
means  that  the  administration  is  using  the  great  power 
of  the  government  to  punish  honest  criticism  of  its  short- 
comings, while  it  accepts  support  of  and  apology  for  these 
shortcomings  as  an  offset  to  action  against  the  war  and, 
therefore,  against  the  nation.  Conduct  of  this  kind  is 
a  grave  abuse  of  official  power. 

Whatever  the  administration  does,  I  shall  continue 
to  act  in  the  future  precisely  as  I  have  acted  in  the  past. 
When  a  senator  like  Mr.  Chamberlain  in  some  great 
matter  serves  the  country  better  than  does  the  adminis- 
tration, I  shall  support  that  senator;  and  when  a  senator 
like  Mr.  La  FoUette  perseveres  in  the  course  followed  by 
the  administration  before  it  reversed  itself  in  February, 
1917,  I  shall  oppose  him  and  to  that  extent  support  the 
administration  in  its  present  position.  I  shall  continue 
to  support  the  administration  in  every  such  action  as 
floating  the  liberty  loans,  raising  the  draft  army,  or  send- 
ing our  troops  abroad.  I  shall  continue  truthfully  to 
criticise  any  flagrant  acts  of  incompetency  by  the  ad- 
ministration, such  as  the  failure  in  shipping  matters  and 
the  breakdown  of  the  War  Department  during  the  last 


APPENDIX  189 

fourteen  months,  when  it  appears  that  such  truthful  criti- 
cism offers  the  only  chance  of  remedying  the  wrong.  I 
shall  support  every  official  from  the  President  down  who 
does  well,  and  shall  oppose  every  such  official  who  does 
ill.  I  shall  not  put  the  personal  comfort  of  the  President 
or  of  any  other  public  servant  above  the  welfare  of  the 
country. 

I  contemptuously  refuse  to  recognize  any  American 
adaptation  of  the  German  doctrine  of  lese-majesty.  I 
am  concerned  only  with  the  welfare  of  my  beloved  coun- 
try and  with  the  effort  to  beat  down  the  German  horror 
in  the  interest  of  the  orderly  freedom  of  all  the  nations 
of  mankind.  If  the  administration  does  the  work  of  war 
with  all  possible  speed  and  efficiency,  and  stands  for  pre- 
paredness as  a  permanent  policy,  and  heartily  supports 
our  allies  to  the  end,  and  insists  upon  complete  victory 
as  a  basis  for  peace,  I  shall  heartily  support  it.  If  the 
administration  moves  in  the  direction  of  an  improper 
peace,  of  the  peace  of  defeat  and  of  cowardice,  or  if  it 
wages  war  feebly  and  timidly,  I  shall  oppose  it  and  shall 
endeavor  to  wake  the  American  people  to  their  danger. 

I  hold  that  only  in  this  way  can  I  act  as  patriotism 
bids  me  act.  I  hold  that  only  in  this  way  can  I  serve  in 
even  the  slightest  degree  the  cause  of  America,  of  the 
Allies,  and  of  liberty;  and  that  only  thus  can  I  aid  in 
thwarting  Germany's  effort  to  establish  a  world  tyranny. 


APPENDIX  D 
THE  TERMS  OF  PEACE 

ADDRESS  AT  LAFAYETTE  DAY  EXERCISES,  ALDER- 
MANIC  CHAMBERS,  NEW  YORK  CITY,  SEPTEMBER 
6th,  191 8,  BY  THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

Lafayette  Day  commemorates  the  services  ren- 
dered to  America  in  the  Revolution  by  France.  I 
wish  to  insist  with  all  possible  emphasis  that  in  the 
present  war  France  and  England  and  Italy  and  the 
other  Allies  have  rendered  us  similar  services.  The 
French  at  the  battle  of  the  Marne  four  years  ago, 
and  at  Verdun,  and  the  British  at  Ypres — in  short, 
the  French,  the  English,  the  Italians,  the  Belgians, 
the  Serbians  have  been  fighting  for  us  when  they 
were  fighting  for  themselves.  Our  army  on  the 
other  side  is  now  repaying  in  part  our  debt,  and 
next  year  we  have  every  reason  to  hope,  and  we 
must  insist,  that  the  fighting  army  in  France  from 
the  United  States  shall  surpass  in  numbers  the 
fighting  army  in  France,  of  either  France  or  Eng- 
land. It  is  now  time — and  it  long  has  been  time 
— for  America  to  bear  her  full  share  of  the  common 
burden,  the  burden  borne  by  all  the  Allies  in  this 
great  war  for  liberty  and  justice. 

We  must  win  the  war  as  speedily  as  possible. 
190 


APPENDIX  191 

But  we  must  set  ourselves  to  fight  it  through  no 
matter  how  long  it  takes,  with  the  resolute  deter- 
mination to  accept  no  peace  until,  no  matter  at 
what  cost,  we  win  the  peace  of  overwhelming  vic- 
tory. The  peace  that  we  win  must  guarantee  full 
reparation  for  the  awful  cost  of  life  and  treasure 
which  the  Prussianized  Germany  of  the  Hohenzol- 
lerns  has  inflicted  on  the  entire  world;  and  this  rep- 
aration must  take  the  form  of  action  that  will  ren- 
der it  impossible  for  Germany  to  repeat  her  colossal 
wrong-doing.  Germany  has  been  able  to  wage  this 
fight  for  world  dominion  because  she  has  subdued 
to  her  purpose  her  vassal  allies,  Austria,  Turkey, 
and  Bulgaria.  Serbia  and  Roumania  must  have 
restored  to  them  what  Bulgaria  has  taken  from  them. 
The  Austrian  and  Turkish  Empires  must  both  be 
broken  up,  all  the  subject  peoples  liberated,  and  the 
Turk  driven  from  Europe.  We  do  not  intend  that 
German  or  Magyar  shall  be  oppressed  by  others, 
but  neither  do  we  intend  that  they  shall  oppress 
and  domineer  over  others.  France  must  receive 
back  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  Belgium  must  be  re- 
stored and  indemnified.  Italian  Austria  must  be 
•  restored  to  Italy,  and  Roumanian  Hungary  to  Rou- 
mania. The  heroic  Czech-Slovaks  must  be  made 
into  an  independent  commonwealth.  The  southern 
Slavs  must  be  united  in  a  great  Jugo-Slav  common- 
wealth. Poland  as  a  genuinely  independent  com- 
monwealth must  receive  back  Austrian  and  Prussian 
Poland,  as  well  as  Russian  Poland,  and  have  her 


192  APPENDIX 

coast  line  on  the  Baltic.  Lithuania,  the  Baltic 
Provinces  of  Russia,  Ukrania,  and  Finland  must  be 
guaranteed  their  independence,  and  no  part  of  the 
ancient  empire  of  Russia  left  under  the  German 
yoke,  or  subject  in  any  way  to  German  influence. 
Northern  Schleswig  should  go  back  to  the  Danes. 
Britain  and  Japan  should  keep  the  colonies  they 
have  conquered.  Armenia  must  be  freed,  Palestine 
made  a  Jewish  state,  the  Greeks  guaranteed  their 
rights,  and  the  Syrians  liberated — all  of  them,  Mo- 
hammedans, Jews,  Druses,  and  Christians,  being 
guaranteed  an  equal  liberty  of  religious  belief,  and 
required  to  work  out  their  independence  on  the 
basis  of  equal  political  and  civil  rights  for  all 
creeds. 

It  is  sometimes  announced  that  part  of  the  peace 
agreement  must  be  a  League  of  Nations,  which  will 
avert  all  war  for  the  future,  and  put  a  stop  to  the 
need  of  this  nation  preparing  its  own  strength  for 
its  own  defense.  Many  of  the  adherents  of  this 
idea  grandiloquently  assert  that  they  intend  to 
supplant  nationalism  by  internationalism. 

In  deciding  upon  proposals  of  this  nature  it  be- 
hooves our  people  to  remember  that  competitive 
rhetoric  is  a  poor  substitute  for  the  habit  of  reso- 
lutely looking  facts  in  the  face.  Nothing  in  the 
world  can  alter  facts.  Patriotism  stands  in  na- 
tional matters  as  love  of  family  does  in  private  life. 
Nationalism  corresponds  to  the  love  a  man  bears 
for  his  wife  and  children.     Internationalism  corre- 


APPENDIX  193 

spends  to  the  feeling  he  has  for  his  neighbors  gen- 
erally. The  sound  nationalist  is  the  only  type  of 
really  helpful  internationalist,  precisely  as  in  private 
relations  it  is  the  man  who  is  most  devoted  to  his 
own  wife  and  children  who  is  apt,  in  the  long  run, 
to  be  the  most  satisfactory  neighbor.  To  substitute 
internationalism  for  nationalism  means  to  do  away 
with  patriotism,  and  is  as  vicious  and  as  profoundly 
demoralizing  as  to  put  promiscuous  devotion  to  all 
other  persons  in  the  place  of  steadfast  devotion  to  a 
man's  own  family.  Either  effort  means  the  atrophy 
of  robust  morality.  The  man  who  loves  other 
countries  as  much  as  his  own  stands  on  a  level  with 
the  man  who  loves  other  women  as  much  as  he  loves 
his  own  wife.  One  is  as  worthless  a  creature  as 
the  other.  The  professional  pacifist  and  the  pro- 
fessional internationalist  are  equally  undesirable 
citizens.  The  American  pacifist  has  in  actual  fact 
shown  himself  to  be  the  tool  and  ally  of  the  Ger- 
man militarist.  The  professional  internationalist 
is  a  man  who,  under  a  pretense  of  diffuse  attach- 
ment for  everybody  hides  the  fact  that  In  reality 
he  is  incapable  of  doing  his  duty  by  anybody. 

We  Americans  should  abhor  all  wrong-doing  to 
other  nations.  We  ought  always  to  act  fairly  and 
generously  by  other  nations.  But  we  must  remem- 
ber that  our  first  duty  is  to  be  loyal  and  patriotic 
citizens  of  our  own  nation,  of  America.  These  two 
facts  should  always  be  in  our  minds  in  dealing  with 
any  proposal  for  a  League  of  Nations.     By  all  means 


194  APPENDIX 

let  us  be  loyal  to  great  ideals.  But  let  us  remem- 
ber that,  unless  we  show  common  sense  in  action, 
loyalty  in  speech  will  amount  to  considerably  less 
than  nothing. 

Test  the  proposed  future  League  of  Nations  so 
far  as  concerns  proposals  to  disarm,  and  to  trust  to 
anything  except  our  own  strength  for  our  own  de- 
fense, by  what  the  nations  are  actually  doing  at  the 
present  time.  Any  such  league  would  have  to  de- 
pend for  its  success  upon  the  adhesion  of  the  nine 
nations  which  are  actually  or  potentially  the  most 
powerful  military  nations,  and  these  nine  nations 
include  Germany,  Austria,  Turkey,  and  Russia. 
The  first  three  have  recently  and  repeatedly  vio- 
lated, and  are  now  actively  and  continuously  vio- 
lating, not  only  every  treaty,  but  every  rule  of  civil- 
ized warfare  and  of  international  good  faith.  Dur- 
ing the  last  year  Russia,  under  the  dominion  of  the 
Bolshevists,  has  betrayed  her  allies,  has  become  the 
tool  of  the  German  autocracy,  and  has  shown  such 
utter  disregard  of  her  national  honor  and  plighted 
word,  and  her  international  duties,  that  she  is  now 
in  external  aflFairs  the  passive  tool  and  ally  of  her 
brutal  conqueror,  Germany.  What  earthly  use  is 
it  to  pretend  that  the  safety  of  the  world  would  be 
secured  by  a  League  in  which  these  four  nations 
would  be  among  the  nine  leading  partners  ?  Long 
years  must  pass  before  we  can  again  trust  any 
promises  these  four  nations  make.  Any  treaty  of 
any  kind  or  sort  which  we  make  with  them  should 


APPENDIX  195 

be  made  with  the  full  understanding  that  they  will 
cynically  repudiate  it  whenever  they  think  it  to 
their  interest  to  do  so.  Therefore,  unless  our  folly 
is  such  that  it  will  not  depart  from  us  until  we  are 
brayed  in  a  mortar,  let  us  remember  that  any  such 
treaty  will  be  worthless  unless  our  own  prepared 
strength  renders  it  unsafe  to  break  it. 

After  the  war  the  wrong-doers  will  be  so  punished 
and  exhausted  that  they  may  for  a  number  of  years 
wish  to  keep  the  peace.  But  the  surest  way  to 
make  them  keep  the  peace  in  the  future  is  to  pun- 
ish them  heavily  now.  And  don't  forget  that  China 
is  now  useless  as  a  prop  to  a  League  of  Peace,  simply 
because  she  lacks  effective  military  strength  for  her 
own  defense. 

Let  us  support  any  reasonable  plan,  whether  in  the 
form  of  a  League  of  Nations  or  in  any  other  shape, 
which  bids  fair  to  lessen  the  probable  number  of 
future  wars,  and  to  limit  their  scope. ^  But  let  us 
laugh  out  of  court  any  assertion  that  any  such  plan 
will  guarantee  peace  and  safety  to  the  foolish,  weak 

^  In  my  book  already  alluded  to,  published  nearly  four  years 
ago  under  the  title  "America  and  the  World  War,"  there  will 
be  found  what  so  far  as  I  know  is  the  most  feasible  plan  for 
actually  putting  into  effect  such  a  League  of  Nations  to  enforce 
peace.  What  I  therein  wrote  on  the  subject  is  sound  doctrine 
to-day;  and  if  what  I  therein  wrote  (in  October,  November,  and 
December,  1914)  as  to  performing  our  international  duty,  and 
as  to  preparedness,  had  been  acted  upon  by  the  administration 
at  Washington,  this  war  would  long  have  been  over,  we  would 
now  have  the  peace  of  right  and  justice,  and  incalculable  blood- 
shed would  have  been  saved. 


196  APPENDIX 

or  timid  creatures  who  have  not  the  will  and  the 
power  to  prepare  for  their  own  defense.  Support 
any  such  plan  which  is  honest  and  reasonable.  But 
support  it  as  an  addition  to,  and  never  as  a  substi- 
tute for,  the  policy  of  preparing  our  own  strength 
for  our  own  defense.  To  follow  any  other  course 
would  turn  this  country  into  the  China  of  the  Occi- 
dent. We  cannot  guarantee  for  ourselves  or  our 
children  peace  without  effort,  or  safety  without  ser- 
vice and  sacrifice.  We  must  prepare  both  our  souls 
and  our  bodies,  in  virile  fashion,  alike  to  secure 
justice  for  ourselves  and  to  do  justice  to  others. 
Only  thus  can  we  secure  our  own  national  self- 
respect.  Only  thus  can  we  secure  the  respect  of 
other  nations  and  the  power  to  aid  them  when  they 
seek  to  do  well. 

In  sum,  then,  I  shall  be  delighted  to  support  the 
movement  for  a  League  to  Enforce  Peace,  or  for 
a  League  of  Nations,  if  it  is  developed  as  a  supple- 
ment to,  and  not  a  substitute  for,  the  preparation  of 
our  own  strength.  I  believe  that  this  preparation 
should  be  by  the  introduction  in  this  country  of  the 
principle  of  universal  training  and  universal  service, 
as  practised  in  Switzerland,  and  modified,  of  course, 
both  along  the  lines  indicated  in  Australia  and  in 
accordance  with  our  own  needs.  There  will  be  no 
taint  of  Prussian  militarism  in  such  a  system.  It 
will  merely  mean  ability  to  fight  for  self-defense 
in  a  great  democracy  in  which  law,  order,  and  lib- 
erty are  to  prevail. 


APPENDIX  E 

STRAIGHT-OUT  AMERICANISM 

I  cannot  resist  putting  in  the  following  letter,  be- 
cause it  shows  just  what  Americanism  demands  in 
the  face  of  Germany  at  this  time,  and  because  it 
shows  what  a  thoroughgoing  American  the  average 
young  American  of  German  parentage  or  descent 
is — for  the  gallant  young  soldier  who  writes  this 
letter  is  typical  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
other  gallant  young  American  soldiers,  in  whole  or 
in  part  of  German  blood — and  typical  of  all  the  mil- 
lions of  other  young  American  soldiers,  Protestant, 
Catholic,  and  Jew,  of  old  native  American  stock,  or 
of  Irish,  English,  Scandinavian,  Slavonic,  French, 
Italian  parentage. 

The  writer  of  the  letter  is  Lieutenant  Earl  B. 
Mahle,  a  second  lieutenant  of  a  machine-gun  com- 
pany, who  had  been  gassed  in  battle.  The  letter 
is  written  from  a  hospital,  on  July  20,  1918.  It  was 
addressed  to  his  uncle,  the  Reverend  W.  E.  Mahle, 
of  Blooming  Grove,  Minnesota.  It  runs  in  part  as 
follows : 

In  your  letter  you  asked  a  lot  of  questions  the  like  of 
which  you  say  I  have  to  answer  when  I  get  back.  I  see 
no  objection  in  answering  a  few  of  them  now. 

You  wonder  how  we  feel  when  given  the  opportunity 
197 


198  APPENDIX 

to  mow  them  down  like  grass  as  they  advance.  I  know 
just  what  you  are  thinking  when  you  ask  that  question. 
I  used  to  think  that  I  would  have  to  reconstitute  my  ideals, 
allow  them  to  descend  to  a  lower  plane,  in  order  to  derive 
any  satisfaction  from  even  killing  the  enemy  in  battle. 
Now  I  admire  the  man  who  asks  the  doctor  to  patch  him 
up  a  bit  so  that  he  can  go  out  and  get  a  few  more  "  boches  " 
before  they  finish  him.  Why  shouldn't  we  derive  some 
satisfaction  at  being  able  to  help  do  away  with  a  breed 
that  cannot  deal  honestly,  but  practices  deception  at 
every  turn;  a  breed  that  delights  in  flying  above  a  pro- 
cession of  innocent  women  and  children  refugees,  and 
shooting  them  down  like  dogs  with  the  aviator's  machine- 
gun;  that  will  swoop  down  upon  a  Red  Cross  hospital 
tent,  and  deliberately  inflict  wounds  on  those  already 
terribly  wounded,  and  deliberately  shoot  down  those 
beautiful  souls,  the  Red  Cross  nurses,  as  they  minister 
to  those  who  are  suffering;  that  practices  the  bombing 
of  hospitals,  and  uses  its  own  Red  Cross  hospital  tents  as 
a  camouflage  for  ammunition  dumps;  that  after  the  battle 
is  over,  deliberately  shoots  down  our  Red  Cross  personnel 
as  they  make  an  attempt  to  bring  help  to  the  wounded; 
a  breed  that  sees  nothing  sacred  in  womanhood,  that  has 
no  religion  but  its  own  desires,  and  knows  no  law  but  its 
own  passions.  Really  I  do  not  think  even  the  most  ex- 
acting of  persons  could  have  any  compunctions  of  con- 
science about  shooting  down  the  class  of  people  we  have 
as  our  enemy.  I  have  a  firm  conviction  that  our  nation 
has  been  divinely  called  or  favored  to  show  to  Germany 
and  her  allies  that  they  cannot  continue  in  their  criminal 
policy  indefinitely  without  answering  for  all  the  suffering 
and  devastation  that  has  been  caused.  After  seeing  what 
I  have  I  am  firmly  convinced  that  our  dead  will  not  have 
died  in  vain,  that  those  Americans  who  have  lost  loved 
ones  in  this  war  should  not  mourn  but  should  take  satis- 
faction. The  greater  the  sacrifice,  the  greater  will  be 
their  reward. 


APPENDIX  199 

I  am  glad  to  hear  )'0u  say  that  America  Is  loyal  every- 
where. It  is  the  right  and  duty  of  every  citizen  to  see 
to  it  that  this  loyalty  is  entire,  that  those  persons  who 
are  found  uttering  pro-German  or  anti-ally  sentiments 
are  arrested  and  brought  before  our  department  of  justice. 
No  person  should  have  any  regrets  about  being  able  to 
render  such  a  service  to  our  cause. 

But  that  brings  me  to  think  again  about  something 
that  I  have  thought  about  a  good  deal  lately.  We  have 
said  a  great  deal  about  pro-Germanism  and  have  con- 
demned it  violently,  but  we  have  said  comparatively 
little  about  the  use  of  the  German  language,  and  what 
could  be  more  pro-German  than  the  German  language, 
what  could  be  more  anti-American  in  these  times?  It  is 
the  official  language  of  "Kaiserism,"  it  is  the  agent  by 
means  of  which  it  was  sought  to  spread  abroad  even  in 
our  own  fair  land  the  much-despised  German  "Kultur." 

We  have  taught  the  German  language  in  our  schools. 
We  were  told  it  was  next  in  importance  to  English  itself. 
Now  we  find  it  hard  to  explain  why  German  was  any 
more  important  to  our  American  than  French  or  Italian 
or  Spanish.  In  our  churches  we  used  the  German  language 
in  the  practice  of  our  religion,  in  many  instances  among 
people  who  were  born  in  America  and  educated  in  its 
schools  and  who  certainly  could  more  readily  understand 
the  English  language.  No  one  can  easily  explain  the 
reason  for  the  last  mentioned  stubbornness. 

Just  before  I  left  America  some  one  suggested  in  my 
presence  that  we  ought  to  bar  the  German  language  from 
a  place  in  the  course  of  study  in  our  high  schools.  To 
this  I  objected.  In  our  ardent  patriotism  we  should  be 
careful  not  to  run  off  on  a  tangent,  we  should  bear  in  mind 
the  essentials  and  forget  trivialities.  Thus  I  argued.  I 
had  studied  German,  I  could  speak  and  even  felt  in  a 
measure  prepared  to  teach  it.  Was  not  the  German  lan- 
guage the  language  in  which  Goethe  and  Schiller  expressed 
such  noble  truths  and  beautiful  sentiments.     There  are 


200  APPENDIX 

noble  truths  and  beautiful  sentiments  given  expression 
in  other  languages  too,  but  in  their  cases  we  use  trans- 
lations. May  we  still  love  Goethe  and  Schiller,  but  at 
the  same  time  realize  that  to-day  their  language  is  the 
language  of  "Kaiserism"  and  "  Kultur,"  which  stands 
for  everything  that  is  low  and  mean  and  deceitful.  We 
are  living  to-day,  and  must  face  conditions  as  they  are 
to-day.  To-day,  the  average  American  with  average  in- 
formation knows  that  it  was  part  of  a  pre-conceived  plan 
of  Kaiser  Wilhelm  and  his  band  of  Potsdam  cut-throats 
to  have  German  taught  in  our  schools,  to  have  German 
used  in  our  churches,  to  have  newspapers  published  in 
the  German  language,  which  should  exert  an  ever-in- 
creasing influence  upon  millions  of  people  in  America,  of 
German  descent,  who  in  turn  would  by  their  vote  have  a 
tremendous  influence  upon  the  political  situations,  grad- 
ually bringing  about  a  turn  of  events  highly  favorable  to 
the  propagation  of  German  autocracy  in  America. 

We  are  at  war  with  Germany,  with  Germans  who  speak 
as  their  language  the  German  language.  It  can  no  longer 
be  said  of  our  troops  that  "they  are  going  and  will  soon 
give  an  account  of  themselves."  They  are  already  here. 
They  have  shown  on  numerous  occasions  that  they  have 
the  true  American  spirit.  They  have  never  yet  been  de- 
feated, no,  not  even  by  superior  numbers.  (I  say  this 
with  some  degree  of  pride  and  I  know  it  is  pardonable.) 
But  to-day  the  American  army  does  not  consist  alone 
of  the  men  who  are  in  France.  Every  American  man, 
woman,  and  child  whether  in  America  or  abroad  is  a  soldier 
in  our  army.  We  have  all  enlisted.  Those  at  home  must 
be  just  as  much  loo-per-cent  Americans  as  those  keeping 
eternal  vigilance  in  the  dead  of  night  at  the  edge  of  No 
Man's  Land.  The  man  who  has  lived  in  America  and 
still  enjoys  its  advantages  and  promises,  and  can  speak 
only  the  German  language,  is  not  a  lOO-per-cent  American. 
He  does  not  and  will  not  comprehend  our  American  ideals 
and  standards. 


APPENDIX  201 

He  bears  watching.  The  man  who  prefers  to  speak 
German  even  though  he  can  speak  some  English  is  an 
enemy  of  the  United  States.  Every  American  knows 
what  should  be  done  with  him.  Do  you  imagine  that  we 
allow  our  soldiers  to  speak  the  German  language  among 
themselves.  I  have  never  yet  seen  where  they  wanted 
to  do  it,  but  if  they  did,  would  we  be  right  in  allowing  it. 
If  I  were  to  hear  two  men  in  America  conversing  in  the 
enemy  tongue,  it  would  be  my  business  to  find  out  "why." 

America's  men,  the  prime  of  her  3'outh,  are  in  France 
fighting  for  a  principle.  They  are  deprived  of  comfort, 
many  are  suffering  and  dying.  Some  of  them  will  never 
again  be  able  to  return  to  the  land  of  their  youth  and  the 
land  of  promise;  they  gave  all,  and  they  gave  it  willingly. 
Some  others  will  return  even  before  the  war  is  over.  They 
will  have  given  much,  an  arm,  a  limb  or  possibly  their 
eyesight;  and  they  will  have  given  gladly  and  without 
complaint.  You  will  receive  them  in  America  in  a  grand 
and  beautiful  way;  no  doubt  you  will  make  them  feel 
that  they  are  "heroes."  But  tell  me,  are  these  same  men 
to  return  to  hear  spoken  all  about  them  the  German  lan- 
guage, are  German  newspapers  to  announce  their  return 
and  comment  on  their  wounds,  are  they  going  to  be  in- 
sulted in  such  a  fashion?  Are  they  to  go  to  church  and 
hear  Christianity  preached  to  them  in  an  enemy  tongue  .f" 
Can  you  see  how  these  boys  could  get  a  full  measure  of 
comfort  out  of  a  religion  preached  to  them  in  the  language 
of  the  enemy  with  whom  they  had  been  engaged  in  mortal 
combat,  the  enemy  who  violated  every  principle  of  that 
same  religion  which  is  Christianity?  Tell  me  is  there 
something  essential  to  Christianity  in  the  German  lan- 
guage? Is  it  the  language  that  makes  Christianity  or  is 
it  the  spirit  of  Christ  after  all?  Have  we  not  heard  about 
false  gods  somewhere,  before  this? 

Yes,  these  are  tremendous  times.  There  was  a  time 
when  we  would  have  said  of  a  man  who  so  desired,  that 
he  was  an  American  until  he  proved  by  his  conduct  that 


202  APPENDIX 

he  was  otherwise.  To-day  is  different.  To-day  we  do 
not  accept  mere  statements.  To-day  no  man  is  a  loyal 
American  until  he  has  proved  himself  to  be  one.  What 
I  mean  to  say  is  that  to-day  there  is  no  passive  Amer- 
icanism, to-day  every  loyal  American  must  be  an  active 
American  willing  to  co-operate  in  every  way  for  the  pro- 
motion of  Americanism,  ready  to  do  all  in  his  power  to 
advance  the  cause  for  which  we  are  struggling,  and  to 
suppress  pro-Germanism  and  Pan-Germanism  in  what- 
ever form  it  may  appear. 

When  you  go  to  the  conference  you  will  meet  many 
with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  probably  many  who  have 
loved  ones  over  here.  Tell  them  for  me  that  they  shall 
be  proud  of  their  American  soldiers,  and  even  if  there  will 
be  those  who  will  not  return,  as  there  will  be,  they  should 
not  mourn  but  should  have  the  same  faith  that  their  hoys 
had,  a  faith  in  God,  and  in  their  cause,  and  an  ever  readi- 
ness to  do  the  thing  that  was  expected  of  them. 

Almost  at  the  same  time  that  this  letter  was 
written  the  following  letter,  preaching  the  same  fine 
and  lofty  Americanism,  was  written  me  by  a  Catholic 
chaplain  serving  with  the  army  under  General 
Pershing. 

With  the  Army  in  France, 

Dugout  No. ,  July  i8,  1918. 

Dear  Colonel  Roosevelt: 

In  the  name  of  this  Artillery  Brigade,  upon  the  heroic 
death  of  your  son  and  our  comrade,  Lieut.  Roosevelt,  I 
extend  to  the  family  our  heartfelt  condolences.  To  you. 
Sir,  I  have  the  honor  of  offering  our  congratulations.  He 
died  the  death  of  a  soldier.  You  would  not  have  it  other- 
wise. 

Your  gallant  son,  who  was  one  of  the  most  dashing 


APPENDIX  203 

officers  in  an  arm  of  the  Service  well  known  for  reckless 
bravery,  has  not  died  in  vain.  His  death  in  the  great 
cause  for  which  we  are  fighting,  will  do  more  to  convince 
the  hideous  Hun  of  the  earnestness  of  our  purpose,  than 
the  work  of  an  Army  Division.  Be  assured  that  his  heroic 
death  will  not  go  unavenged.  We  shall  see  to  it  that  the 
barbarian  pays  for  it  in  measure  heaped  up  and  running 
over.  It  has  already  enthused  the  Army  and  strength- 
ened our  hands. 

Through  you,  may  I  send  a  message  to  the  folks  back 
home — particularly  to  my  people  of  Irish  lineage  and 
the  Catholics  of  America.  If  amongst  them  there  re- 
mains a  single  individual  obstinately  "unconverted"  to 
the  righteousness  of  the  cause  for  which  we  are  here  under 
the  guns,  that  man  is  a  traitor  and  should  be  dealt  with 
accordingly.  I  am  speaking  as  a  priest  of  the  Catholic 
Church  when  I  say  that  I  believe  every  one  of  our  coun- 
trymen should  develop  a  healthy  hatred  for  the  unre- 
generate  German,  and  for  everything  that  smacks  of 
thrice-accursed  German  Kultur. 

I  beg  leave  to  send  this  message  through  you,  because 
you  were  always  just  and  fair  to  our  Catholic  people  and 
they  regard  you  as  their  friend.  I  am  weighing  my  words, 
and  can  prove  them  when  I  say  that  nearly  fifty  per  cent 
of  the  Army  under  fire  to  day  is  Catholic.  England-baiters 
back  home  are  doing  their  best  to  destroy  the  record  that 
we  are  building.     They  deserve  no  quarter. 

You  have  been  friendly  to  the  Jew  as  well  as  to  the 
Catholic.  You  may  be  interested  therefore  to  know  that 
many  of  our  best  officers  and  men  are  Jews.  Among  them 
I  have  the  stanchest  friends.  As  a  Catholic  priest,  I 
take  my  hat  off  to  the  Jew  for  heroism  on  the  field  of 
battle  and  loyalty  at  home. 

Here  too  let  me  say  a  word  for  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  When 
the  history  of  this  great  war  is  written,  the  historian  will 
in  justice  be  obliged  to  give  not  a  little  of  the  glory  of 
victory  to    the  courage,   self-sacrifice,   and   efficiency  of 


204  APPENDIX 

the  men  who  wore  the  red  triangle.  I  say  to  you,  Sir, 
it  is  an  inspiring  sight  to  see  the  spirit  of  real  fraternity 
there  is  among  the  troops  in  the  field — Catholic  and  Prot- 
estant and  Jew  standing  as  one  man  presenting  a  solid 
front  to  a  common  enemy.  And  I  believe,  as  I  believe 
there  is  a  God  above,  that  one  of  the  important  by-prod- 
ucts of  this  war  is  going  to  be  a  better  spirit  of  mutual 
understanding  and  toleration  all  around.  The  war  is 
going  to  weld  the  country  together  as  it  never  was  welded 
before.  The  spirit  of  the  men  here  is  that  we  are  going 
to  win  the  war,  though  it  cost  the  last  dollar  and  the  last 
man.  We  are  counting  on  the  same  spirit  at  home  and 
I  believe  that  we  are  not  going  to  be  disappointed. 

Kindly  pardon  my  undignified  longhand  script.  A 
typewriting-machine  is  too  great  a  luxury  in  this  cave 
40  feet  underground.  Dugout  No. —  is  not  the  most  com- 
fortable office-room  in  the  world.  My  mahogany  desk  is 
a  pile  of  empty  cartridge-boxes  that  threatens  to  topple 
over  very  time  the  earth  quakes  on  the  booming  of  our 
guns — which  is  almost  continually.  We  all  wear  rubber 
boots  and  are  splashed  over  with  yellow  mud  and  re- 
freshing ice  cold  spring-water.  We  sleep  in  our  gas-masks. 
I  have  occupied  more  comfortable  quarters,  yet  withal, 
I  am  very  happy  here.  It  is  an  excellent  vantage-point 
from  which  to  view  and  study  Hunnish  ruthlessness.  If  a 
Chaplain  could  be  pardoned  for  quasi-profanity,  I  would 
say  with  all  my  heart:  "Anathema  sit  to  the  accursed 
Hun  and  everything  connected  with  his  accursed  scheme 
of  world  conquest." 

Very  truly  yours, 

Vincent  J.  Toole, 
Chaplain  324  Field  Artillery. 


uc  so; 


,,m:„M'^"'i'"-,^I,| 


ipRKRV  f '^CJUTV 


ffm  327  347 


